


Grace

by amber_sword_lilies



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy 15, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Attempted Suicide, Barebacking, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child PTSD, Concussions, Creampie, Cunnilingus, Darkfic, Depression, Doggy Style, Dom/sub, Drunkenness, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Familial Bereavement, Floor Sex, Fluff, Gore, Grief/Mourning, Gun Violence, Harm to Animals, Heavy Angst, Hellishly Irregular Updates (sorry), Hurt/Comfort, Implied paedophilia, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Injury, Invasion, Kitchen Sex, Lingerie, Major Illness, Malnutrition, Menstruation, Mental Breakdown, Mention of (Potential) Rape, Missionary Position, Murder, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Observations of Trauma, Only One Bed, Pain, Pair Bonding, Pining, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy Scares, References to Paedophilia, Secret Relationship, Seizures, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Smoking, Smut, Spanking, Stabbing, Strong Language, Suicidal Thoughts, TB, Timeskips, Torture, Touch Aversion, Unplanned Pregnancy, War, Whump, bereavement, blowjob, implied child neglect, insemination kink, longfic, traumatic bereavement, violent child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2019-08-04 23:49:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 348,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amber_sword_lilies/pseuds/amber_sword_lilies
Summary: After a misunderstanding, Rena finds herself in the crown city. What she doesn't expect are the ties that come with it, as a survivor begins to live for the first time. Even as the world changes around her, in ways no-one could anticipate, she plays more than the witness.





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unintentional run-in raises concern amongst the boys, whilst their captive proves to be more than meets the eye.

The inky clouds turned blue in a flash, followed by a long, guttural rumble that shook the earth.

He had one shot. One chance to get it right. His finger pressed down on shutter, warm from his many attempts and then…

Flash.

Then the shutter clicked.

Prompto whined a curse for his missed opportunity. In trying to capture the precise moment that lightning giving the dark, flat sky sudden dimension, he had his camera aimed at the open valley. Dark ridges lined the right, before empty ground studded with thorned shrubs and pale trees swept left to the sheer expanse of Leide.

Noctis, roused from a light doze by the protests, gave a small smile, shook his head and looked around the campsite.

The tents were pitched, ready for what promised to be a turbulent night. The storm had been brewing all afternoon and had brought a swift, shrouded evening. Leide wasn’t sporting its usual blood red sunsets, as sweet and vibrant in their heat as chillies.

Ignis pressed the end of a silvery fountain pen to his bottom lip and read over a newly-tested recipe. He occasionally left lazy ink marks on the paper, a different herb here, a certain time there.

On the last of the chairs, furthest from the fire, Gladiolus slouched. He watched the moody sky with keen eyes. The air was filled with the smells of wood smoke,freshly brewed but still miserable campfire coffee and singed notes of charging clouds.

“Here it comes.”

The blond halted his fussing and became glued to his camera. Noctis turned in his chair to watch the valley. Even Ignis’ eyes rose from the fine paper in his lap. The charge of the storm rose in their bones before the sky was once again dyed sapphire. Gladiolus pressed a calloused hand into the grit by his chair leg, the sand and gravel light under his touch. The sky roared deeply, the sound running along the ridges and right under his hand. He closed his eyes to focus on the sensation; low and rough and undeniable.

“And...I missed it again,” Prompto whined. “Hope this keeps up. I need this shot, man!” He pulled his camera from the tripod and deleted the picture with a grumble.

Noctis sighed as he ran a pale hand through dark, feathery hair. “I don’t think the weather’s going anywhere.”

His hand still planted in the ground, Gladiolus had felt the thunder wash under it like a wave. Now though, in its fading, the Shield noticed it picking up again. Except, it wasn’t the same. An anticipatory knot tied itself in his stomach and his hands began to itch for his sword.

“Iggy, Noct… Hey! Put the damned camera down! Shh!” He stood, and in a burst of crystals, his broadsword was in hand. The others watched him carefully.

They rose to their feet and one by one, and in bursts of manifested crystal, their weapons were summoned. Over the crackling fire, snarls passed into the campsite like daemons, flitting over it in sharp, shadowy calls. The sounds circled the camp and died as suddenly as they’d begun.

Prompto twitched, staring out into the darkness with electric blue eyes. “Hey, d’you think they’re gone? Maybe?”

It was Ignis that hushed him this time. Jade eyes spared a glance to the man at his side. Gladio peered at the blackness under furrowed brows. The silence of the abyss stretched seconds into minutes.

Dark bones raced past Ignis, too sudden to earn his lance. Prompto jumped a few feet backwards and took aim at the sabertusk. It stood between the four of them, jaws snapping in menace. Noctis slashed at its skeletal haunches. The beast spun around and kicked glowing embers at Gladiolus. He stumbled back, scraping hot ash from his face. Ignis struck. Prompto landed a shot to the temple. It dropped to the ground in a lazy heap of bones, the pale eyes dulling within seconds.

The shrieks of the rest of the pack echoed off the ridges, throwing themselves through the air from all directions.

“Aw man! This was not part of the plan!” Prompto sang in a shaky timbre. He fiddled nervously with the edges of his vest and pockets.

“Be quiet. They may have just been passing through. This one could have been at the edge of the pack.” Ignis said, tone clipped. His brow furrowed over a pair of sharp eyes. “If we stay quiet, we may go unnoticed.”

“Hey Gladio, you’ve got something on your face.” Noctis said blankly. The Shield glared at him, before loosening to a game smile and pulling the corner of his shirt up to wipe his face again.

At last, the fire smouldered to a slow death under the body of the beast. The cries of the pack were closing in. They searched for their missing member.

The boys readied their weapons again, all but blinded by the dark. Ignis’ brow gathered as he strained his ears, trying desperately to pinpoint the location of the nearest sabertusk. They moved fast. It was difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Having dug the torches from a bag, Prompto quickly threw them to where he remembered them standing last. Lights on, they peered into the gloomy quiet of the night as squeals and rasps raked through it like claws.

Flashes of sabertusks sprinted past in the dark. Too far to strike but close enough to see. With a quick blue flash from the storm, the cloudless sky roared again, momentarily silencing the pack. As all four men stood in a circle, facing outwards into the darkness, spits of rain began to streak the pale view granted by torches.

It turned to sheets of cold water, hammering the dust from the ground. The light gave them away and the beasts edged closer every time they dared.

Ignis flew forwards, swiftly thrusting his lance and caught a beast just in front of its hip. It yelped, snarled cruelly and then charged.

Noctis was on it before it could reach him, slashing his sword at its neck.

“Prompto!”

Gladio charged straight past him to bring his sword down on a hunched spine, almost slicing it in two. A second charged. He brought his weapon up and held the snapping maws back.

Prompto appeared at his back. He fired whenever he could line up the shots, his eyes wide in the darkness and hair quickly drooping from the rain. Sabertusks charged from all directions, using each other as distractions; as opportunities to attack.

“Agh! Oh shit!” Prompto whimpered. He scrambled on the ground for his ammunition, desperately thumbing to load his gun again.

Gladiolus turned to him, only to run and swing at another of the pack. Another lunged from his left. Ignis buried his lance in its skull. The rain was pummelling down, warping their already limited vision.

Something was missing.

“Noct!” Gladiolus called into the shimmering darkness. His torchlight was nowhere to be seen. They stood silently and tried to hear him. Through the pouring rain and bellowing sky, they could hear him grunting in a struggle. The three raced towards the sound.

Noct’s back came into view. Gladio readied his sword as Ignis held his lance back, ready to throw it as soon as he had a clear shot. Noctis leapt away from them, bringing his sword down with all his strength.

He was blocked, his blade quickly deflected. Unable to see, he sensed his opponent’s position. The Prince slashed to the right, only to be dodged. All finesse gone, he lurched sideways, struck, was blocked, and thrown to the ground. A dark figure loomed over him, a sword tip inches from his throat. Noctis, still disorientated by his fall, began to scramble backwards.

The broadsword swung from its high hands.

He was blocked.

The Shield, using sheer force, held the blade in the darkness. It barely moved. He held a vicious snarl on his face as he forced his sword down. Having leapt clear of Noctis, he had no qualms about bringing it down with all his weight and the rain to rinse the mess. The smell of rain, sweat and burning atmosphere filled their nostrils.

Prompto fired. His shot bounced off the greatsword as it was brought crashing down. A torch was thrown to Noctis, caught and attached in seconds. The assassin, no longer able to fight against brute force, had leapt backwards and began to race into the night.

Having recovered, Noctis fixed a furious look on his face.

“Noct!” they clamoured as he flew after the assailant, warping to make up ground. He disappeared into the darkness in a rage as they broke after him. In the shallow vision their lights allowed, all they could see was rain. A blinding rush shocked from the unrelenting sky and afforded them a glimpse. A boulder approached their vision. The high notes of steel against steel sang from beyond it.

Noctis struck and was dodged. The blade shone in thickly blurred waves as he furiously pushed his opponent against a rock face. A light followed by a broad stretch of steel appeared in his vision, slicing between him and his target. Noctis was pushed backwards as the broadsword veered towards the rock.

It was met by a blade. Gladiolus, a snarl fixed on his face and his heels planted in the flooded dirt, forced his blade forwards until was inches from the assassin. His furious eyes glared at shadow under a hood.

The clouds gave another sudden flash. It illuminated the flat expanse of the valley, lit the ridges so that they burned with ochre flames and revealed a pair of eyes behind the blade. He pressed his sword forward again, inches from a concealed throat.

Their weapon landed on the muddied ground with a dull beat.

Noctis was primed, sword readied at the attackers left. Prompto was a few metres away, handgun at the ready and bright eyes keen. Gladiolus brought his sword an inch from the throat and waited for the word. It would take little more.

“Wait!”

Ignis’ fluid voice slipped over the pointed formation.

“This better be good.”

Ignis slipped through the group. He stood by the poised Shield and stared at the assailant, his light revealing faint eyes behind the visor again.

“Who sent you?” he asked coolly.

He didn’t move.

“I said,” he began again, voice still as cold and hollow as before. “Who sent you?”

The assassin stood stock still, the others coming closer, before trying to dart away. The others flinched, weapons glinting in the torchlight. The blade pressed forward. Pinned against the rock, steel pushing threateningly against the dark fabric over the throat.

“Who sent you?!” Gladiolus demanded, forcing his blade forwards again.

Silence.

“Well then.” Ignis tilted his head back and considered the dark figure again. “Even if it takes all night, we will get an answer. Prompto, here, bind him.”

The smaller blond padded forwards, took the rope from Ignis’ hands and dropped to his haunches. He tied the ankles, then the knees.

Gladiolus kept his sword in position, the urge to drag it across the waiting throat building in his gut as every fried nerve urged him on.

Prompto hauled the rope to secure the knot. He looked up at Gladiolus and gave a solemn nod. In an instant, the assassin was turned around, held against the rock by a large, calloused hand against the nape and a sharp blade just above it. All he’d have to do was slice.

Prompto rushed to gather the linen-bound hands, placed them back to back and bound them by the wrists. He tugged the rope once more. He rose from his crouch and exhaled deeply.

“Ready to go,” he smiled brightly, his optimistic thumbs-up met by a dark glare from the Shield. Prompto shrank quickly.

The sword disappeared in a burst of crystals as he grabbed the knot that held the shoulders back and wrists down. He turned around, hostage in hand. They marched back to camp through the pouring darkness.

Gladio twisted the knot that bound the wrists to test just how much it would take to cause pain. He was given nothing but silence.

Prompto and Ignis set about removing the sabertusk carcass, set a rainsheet and gave new life to the dampened embers. A fresh fire blazing, Noctis slumped into a chair, pale, clammy and sluggish. Prompto flitted over to him and brought a small blue bottle of potion and a chocolate bar from his pack. The thick smells of burning flesh, wet smoke and sweat filled the camp.

“Put him on his knees, please, Gladio.” Ignis spoke flatly, pacing between the fire and the hostage.

The Shield wrenched him to kneel and stood behind, close enough to strike if necessary. A careful blow to the back of the head would make him talk. A light second could dull him enough to extract the truth. A quick third would knock him out. A fourth would kill him. He could skip to four if the need arose, he kept his hands steady, just.

Ignis stopped pacing and fixed his cool stare on the hostage.

“Who sent you?” he asked again, just as glacial as the first time.

Silence.

Gladiolus clenched his jaw and balled his fist. A gently raised hand from Ignis kept it still. He waved away the first question.

“How did you know where to find us?” he probed, holding a gloved knuckle to his chin. His jade eyes gave a hint of curiosity, lowered brows suggesting apprehension.

Silence.

The Shield fixed his eyes on his nape, marking just below the skull. Short nails gouged his palm. Ignis tried again.

“Are you aware of the company you keep?” he asked, the detached air around his voice tinged with irritation. “This is Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum. Heir to the Lucian throne. You know that, of course. You wouldn’t have attacked him otherwise.”

Silence choked the group again, interrupted only by the west-bound march of thunder. The Shield drew his fist backwards, coiling to strike. He burst forwards.

“No.”

The voice muffled through a dark bandana that obscured beneath the visor. They froze.

“Wha...?” The word slipped weakly from the Prince’s lips. The hostage drew a deep breath and turned his head to Ignis.

“No. I didn’t know. Not until now,” he said, voice was dampened by the wet fabric. He turned to face Noctis, and the Shield bristled. He gave a polite nod. “Your Highness, I’d curtsey but… Already on my knees, here.”

“You mean ‘bow’?” Noctis squinted at him, leaning forward in his chair. “You’d bow or kneel, you’re-.”

“He’s messing with us,” Gladiolus grunted, eyes aflame.

“Wait.” Ignis stepped closer.

He concealed the kneeling assassin with his lithe form. The Advisor took the soaked fabric of the bandana between his fingers and tugged it down swiftly. Light fingertips cast the hood back. He paused for a moment, then stepped away. Pale green eyes fixed keenly on the hostage. He stepped aside.

Prompto gasped.

“He’s… He’s a she!” he spluttered.

“She still tried to kill me!” Noctis gaped, thumping Prompto’s shoulder. His brows had furrowed, but his deep blue eyes were wide.

“All due respect and all, but-.”

“Shut up.”

“All right, that’s quite enough,” Ignis interrupted. He took a seat and fixed his pensive expression on her. “The questions remain; who sent you and how did you find us?”

Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Features held in a hard expression, she kept still. She breathed deeply and screwed her eyes shut. The Shield, fists still clenched, kicked her boot.

“Just tell us,” Noctis commanded, straightening in his seat and gripping the arm rests.

His exhaustion wrestled with his youthful appearance, suddenly aged by the rich light of the fire. In combination with his posture, the young man was suddenly regal. Prompto dropped to his haunches, still amazed by the sudden female in their midst. She knelt, brows furrowed, breath shaking through gritted teeth.

Noctis locked eyes with Gladiolus. He silently hovered his foot over her ankle, awaiting the order. Silence gripped the camp again. Minutes passed. Jaw clenched, the Shield received the nod. He brought his leg up, bracing to bring it down with all his weight.

“No one.”

She lifted her face, still staring at the ground. Her lips quivered, breathing deeply as she kept her voice low. The Shield lowered his leg slowly, resting his foot on her ankle. He transferred a little of his weight to it. Her pale complexion reflected the firelight dully.

“Who sent you?” Noctis demanded, heat sparking rasp into his voice.

“No one.”

“Quit lying,” grumbled the Shield. He pressed more on her ankle. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her gaze flicked up. Noctis bristled at her serious expression, eyes catching the flames.

“No one,” she said, looking straight at him.

Gladiolus pushed his foot down, increasingly aware of the straining joint beneath his shoe. She stared forward militantly and watched Noctis think. Unease pooled in the group. It reduced Prompto to a fidgeting mess. He ran his hands through his hair, rummaged through his bag, picked up and put down a mug repeatedly, unsure of what to do. After repeatedly squeezing his hands and arms, he turned to his friend.

“Noct, I think maybe she-,” Noctis silenced him with a side glance. Prompto paused, then stuttered to continue. “M-maybe she’s telling the truth? Maybe?”

Her focus switched to over the younger blond, then back to Noctis. Eyes dark in the subtle glow of the fire, Noctis stood.

Ignis stepped in front of him and whispered in a cool, even tone. She kept perfectly still. An ache was beginning to crush her shoulder blades, but she refused to move. Rolling her shoulders earned weight crushing her ankle to the ground, finally enough to earn a hissed inhale.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gladiolus said roughly.

She stilled her movements and watched. The Prince’s face changed from surprise, his mouth opening and closing. Finally, he groaned and lolled his head backwards. Several times, Ignis pressed his hand to Noctis’ shoulder and settled him. Sapphire glared at her. Ignis stepped away, turned and faced their hostage.

“Once more. A different question.” He scanned her face for the slightest movements. “Why are you here?”

“I was hunting.”

Prompto, who had been chewing his nails, widened his eyes at the sudden difference of answer. He watched her as the hand playing with a rip in his jeans slowed, then stopped.

Ignis seemed to approve. “Continue.”

“The sabertusks,” The words tumbled from her mouth. Her bottom lip quivered. It was split and bleeding. Gladiolus twisted her ankle under his shoe, prompting her. “I was in the area. Some… Some guys from a nearby town asked me to get rid of the pack. Look, I’m really sorry-.”

“Why?”

“Fuckin’... They kept hassling drivers when they passed through. Eight crashes already this month,” She closed her eyes and deliberately slowed her speech.

Gladio waited for Ignis’ gaze to shift to him. “I didn’t hear anything about this.”

“News from Outer Leide is often obscured by the city’s relative drama. It’s quite normal to hear nothing for months.”

“Wait, can I-?”

“Maybe we could ask around in the morning?” chirped Prompto, his hands flitting between his hips and hair. “That way, I mean, we know if she’s-.”

“Yeah? And what do we do with her until then? Invite her in? Offer a hot cup of coffee?” Noctis narrowed his eyes, his chest sinking in sulky exhaustion.

“No,” Ignis said, voice carrying a decisive tone. “It still won’t tell us if she’s lying. The rumours may be true; she may be using them as cover. If we want the truth, we need to find her employers.”

Noctis scratched the back of his head, a scowl playing across his face. He flicked between the blue and green eyes awaiting his decision. When he glanced over, Gladiolus still had his foot firmly planted on her ankle. A choice had to be made.

“Have you made your decision?” Ignis prompted him gently, though the need for answer was a steel undertone.

“Yeah, just… Yeah. Gladio, tie her up. We’ll pick this up tomorrow,” he mumbled, swaying on his feet. “I’m going to bed.”

As the deluge continued, the camp settled under it. Noctis was the first gone, slipping inside the tent and landing on a bedroll with a thud. Ignis tidied the pots and pans away, and tapped something into the pale blue of his phone before turning in. Prompto helped Gladiolus. Taking the length of rope between the knots at her wrists and knees, he pulled her to stand and marched her to the Regalia. He forced her to her knees on the soaked ground before he passed Prompto the end of the rope. She was quickly tied to the rear bumper. The blond supplied a wary smile, full of pity, into the dark, drained eyes that watched him. Gladiolus kept watch, peering into the shallow vision his torch allowed and hearing beyond.

“There, that oughta do it. See you back at camp, big guy,” Prompto smiled weakly, his twitching movements slowed and diminished. He shook the rain from his hair, only to raise a hand to his temple and screw his eyes in pain as a headache set in. He set off for the distant, fading fire.

Gladiolus turned to follow, but he growled over his shoulder first.

“Don’t get any ideas.”


	2. Advocacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their first encounter, too many questions remain unanswered and even more arise throughout the day.

Time, and its passing, whisked the billowing sheet of night over Leide; over the world. The deep black of clouds had marched west in the small hours, and so the sky had spun and become a canvas of warm indigo, spattered with the faint glow of a thousand suns, stretched between horizons.

Until dawn. Until the bellows were put to the embers of yesterday. Lazy scarlet turning bronze, hardening into the infernal white heat of day, tempered by infinite reignitions.

Emerging from the tent, Gladiolus stretched in the morning sun. Lazy steam climbed from the dirt and disappeared. Clouds for tomorrow. For now, the sky was broad and blue. He spread his arms and arched his back. After a satisfying pop, his hands clasped over his nape. Taking one more drink of the cool morning air to fill his lungs, he began to run. The ridge and back, he thought, fixing his eyes on the horizon. In the swelling heat, it wasn’t long before sweat polished his brow. He outstretched a hand to meet any ashen, skeletal shrubs that grew tall enough to reach him.

The ridge approached, glowing aurous in the sun. He was breathing harder, having to pull the hot air into his lungs as he climbed. Gravel shifted beneath his feet as he clambered upwards. He crested the ridge and paused.

The valley was waking up. The sunrise set amber eyes on fire as he took in the view of jutting ridges holding up the deepening blue. Twisted, sparse trees lingered over the rusting ground. Svelte and black, the Regalia steamed in the sun, loosening the rain and dew from her contours. She was as foreign here as the numerous, but rapidly shrinking, puddles that shifted like mercury. Under his hands, seams of mineral shimmered in the dawn. He sat in the sun, a smile hinting on his face as heat fanned across his chest.

His eyes fixed on the Regalia.

Before catching his breath, he set off again.

He careered down the slope. Once on level ground, he clawed the smooth shape closer with every stride. His pace slackened.

Kneeling at the bumper was a form as still and dark as the car. He stood, hands on his hips, and watched her, curled in a ball and completely immobile. Her head was hanging forwards, covered by a black hood. Between taut shoulders, her back rose and fell in a single, slow, deliberate breath. Just for show.

Gladiolus made his final stretch in good time, jogging into camp just as Ignis poured his first cup of coffee. He waved away the steaming mug offered to him and cracked open a bottle of water. The flimsy plastic crumpled in his hand as he drained it.

“What’s the plan?” he asked, his voice hoarse from sleep and his run in the hot, dry morning.

“Eh?” Ignis groaned and settled down, sipping the coffee. His glasses fogged. Gladiolus shook his head gently and turned to scan the horizon.

The heat defied the time, stretching seconds into minutes. He turned back to Ignis and looked for any signs of life. Still nursing his coffee with low brows, he absently stroked the side of the mug and didn’t look up at Gladio.

The Shield cut his losses and ducked into the tent. He pressed a thumb into Noctis’ ribs.

“Up.”

Prompto, curled around Ignis’ abandoned bedroll, stirred at the intrusion. His pale lips formed a pout, translucent brows drawn together as he gripped the fabric.

Noctis hadn’t even moved. Gentle snores slipped from his mouth. They stopped when Gladiolus kicked his foot. Still nothing. The snoring resumed after a moment.

Prompto stretched and strained, squeaking through his first movements of the day. He opened an eye and searched around the blue haze of the tent.

“Oh, hey, big guy…” he trailed off, turning onto his back, his freckled arms draped over his face.

“You too,” he grunted. “Shit to do.”

Prompto froze.

“Oh!”

“Yeah, that.”

Prompto sat up and swayed a little. He pulled on his boots and nearly fell out of the tent, earning an offended bleat of surprise from Ignis.

Noctis was flat on his back, still asleep. Gladiolus rolled his eyes and picked him up, slinging him over his shoulder. He abandoned him in a chair and dropping to his haunches to try again.

“Noct,” he snapped his fingers. The Shield breathed a sigh. He tapped the side of Noctis’ face. The snoring stopped, but his head continued to loll forwards.

Prompto had bounced a little too closely to Ignis, eliciting a glare and stiff lips from the partially caffeinated man.

“Where’s- wait, did we even get her name?” Prompto squinted in the bright sun and stretched his arms above his head. Gladiolus pointed his thumb to the car, his eyes fixed on the drooping Prince. “Wait- she’s still there?”

“Yep. Still alive, too.”

“Oh man, you’re right! We-we left her there all night-,” Prompto’s eyes widened, “she could’ve been killed! Eaten! She-she-!”

“She wasn’t.”

“Hmm,” Ignis stirred, accepting a top up from Gladiolus before returning to his brooding. “Did she say where her employers were based? I don’t recall asking her.”

“Guys!” Prompto demanded. Noctis started and flopped out of his chair. “We can’t just leave her there all day!”

“Sure we can. She waited all night. She can wait until we’re ready to go,” he moaned from a heap on the ground.

“Come on,” Gladiolus chuckled, picking Noctis up by his arm. “If you can speak, you can spar. Training time, princess.”

Noctis groaned and followed him to a clearing. He summoned the Engine Blade and swivelled it in his hand. Gladiolus struck first, aiming for his side. He lazily batted the blade away, still drowsy. Pausing to yawn, a broadsword flashed in front of his chest. The sun was beating down mercilessly. Heat rose from the ground, burning out any semblance of moisture. Noctis pounced forwards. He struck at Gladio’s left. Dark metal flashed in the blazing light. He landed the flat of his blade on the Shield’s thigh. When he straightened up, the broadsword was inches from his neck.

“Dead.” He said flatly. Noctis glared back with gunmetal eyes.

A few swings later, the broadsword end was pressed against his back.

“Dead.”

It happened again. Time after time, Noctis was brought to the end of a sword, thrown to the ground or stopped mid-swing by a dark blade.

“Dead.”

“Dead.”

“Dead.”

“Gladio, stop.” Sweat dripped past his temples. The stretch of metal came at him again. “Hey!”

The Shield planted his sword in the ground and propped himself up on it. Noctis was spread eagle in the sun and panting, a rare flush on his cheeks.

“What… the hell… did Ignis put… in your coffee?”

“We’ve been lazy,” he grumbled, drawing the back of his hand across his forehead. The air was thick with inferno. Drawing in a hot lungful, Gladio furrowed his brow. “We need to push harder. If we do that-.”

“Gladio.”

“What?”

“Do we have to do that today?” he whined, arms draped across his face to shield from the light. His skin prickled in the heat. “Come on, please. It’s too hot. I might die.”

“You might die if we can’t fight,” he growled, hauling his weapon from the ground. “Up.”

He held a hand out to the downed Noctis.

“Up.”

The Prince’s clammy hand slapped into a larger, rougher one and he was hoisted to his feet. He turned his sword in his hand and pressed forwards. The strikes kept coming. One. Another. Again. Each was met by an omnipresent blade. Heat, hunger and tiredness were building in Noctis, tearing at his patience like dogs. He warped behind Gladiolus. The point of the Engine Blade pressed lightly at the base of his neck.

The Shield didn’t miss a beat. He spun instantly. The flat of the broadsword tapped Noct’s side.

“Dirty trick.”

“You told me to fight.” Noctis shrugged, striding back to camp. Gladiolus let out a snarl and threw the broadsword. It bolted past Noctis, the rush of cool air hitting his arm. He turned around with a scowl on his face.

“There. Are we done now? Can we go eat?” he asked. Gladio growled in his throat before following.

He settled into a chair and let his head fall back. Sweat trickled down his neck, pausing in the well of his collarbone. Ignis was plating breakfast; eggs, dualhorn and toast. Noctis and Prompto jostled for a plate. The Prince took his to his seat, gingerly flicked a herb away and began to shovel food into his mouth, barely chewing. He refused to look at Gladiolus, keeping his eyes fixed on his plate. Prompto ate just as enthusiastically. Between them, the dark remnants of the fire threatened to spark in the heavy heat. Ignis passed a plate to Gladiolus before settling in a chair with his own. He crossed his legs and began delicately picking at the meal. They ate in silence.

Halfway through dipping toast into the yolk of his egg, Prompto stopped. The others didn’t notice at first. He carefully reorganised his food, before setting the plate down at his side.

“Yes, I may have over-seasoned the eggs,” Ignis murmured. His jade eyes passed to Noctis, searching for any sign of complaint.

“What? No, no. I’m just- not that hungry.” Prompto shrugged. Gladiolus paused, chewing his last bite. He looked at Ignis before carefully searching Prompto. He was fidgeting, hands flitting between his hair, gloves, the ripped knees of his jeans, his arms and through the motions again.

Gladio fixed on him. “You feelin’ okay?”

He drew his thick brows together and tried to soften his expression. He didn’t know him well enough to take any chances and risk him blacking out on a day as hot as this. The young blond started, a blush spreading across his nose.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s too hot to eat and I mean-.”

“We’re gonna be on the move all day. You gotta eat.”

“Oh, yeah. I know, but I just-.” He stumbled over his words.

“Prompto,” Noctis watched him with soft blue eyes. “What’s going on?”

Prompto squirmed under the collective stare of the group. I don’t need to eat; the statement rang in his head. Under three sets of eyes and the weight in his gut, his nerve gave way. He jumped to his feet before picking up the plate.

“I-I just don’t think it’s right, guys,” he frowned, his stomach sinking. “We left her there all night- she could’ve died. Now we’re not even gonna give her something to eat?”

Ignis fixed a cool focus on the blond and pressed his lips together. Gladiolus watched, his face hardening at Prompto, who sank into his shoulders.

“She attacked him, Prompto. As far as Lucian law is concerned, that’s direct treason. We must treat her appropriately until we return to Insomnia for trial.”

“Wait guys, we don’t even know if she meant to-,” Prompto began, looking at the stammering Noctis. Ignis held up a hand and continued.

“She’s guilty until proven otherwise,” he began collecting dishes. He stopped at Prompto, holding out his hand. “That’s the law.”

Prompto shifted on his feet, opening his mouth only to close it again. He sighed, handing Ignis his plate before disappearing into the tent.

The sun rose higher, burning into their skins as they silently packed up camp. An uncomfortable air settled on the group. They piled the gear up by the Regalia, then stood around their captive.

She didn’t look up. Dressed in dark brown, covered head to toe, she hung forward, wrists tethered to the bumper. Prompto gave a pleading look to Noctis. He nodded.

Clumsy fingers worked quickly to loosen her bonds. She swayed forward before straightening up. Her hands still bound behind her back, she rolled her shoulders, loosening the joints with sickening clunks. Prompto dropped to his haunches, untying her hands. She turned her head and watched him. His eyes were level with hers. He froze. She waited for him to move away before bringing her arms around to her front. Stretching her fingers, she sat, unfolded her bound legs and rubbed the numb flesh.

“I’m Prompto,” he croaked, swallowing despite his dry mouth. He waved to the others in turn. “This is Noctis, Gladio and Ignis.”

Ignis dropped his knuckle from his chin and stared at Prompto. Gladiolus had shouldered in front of Noctis, hands itching for a blade. She stretched her neck before looking up. Her eyes passed across their faces.

“Morning.” She nodded hoarsely. Her pale skin was coated in sweat, her eyes set in purple sockets. Her lips were chapped, split and parted, black with dried blood as shallow breaths passed between them. Prompto began digging in his bag.

“Who are you?” Noctis asked, drawing level with Gladiolus, who was still watching her every move. One twitch in any direction and he’d break her legs. Her eyes dropped back to the ground as her head swayed. The ground spun underneath her. She shook her head and looked up at them again, a puzzled expression on her face.

“Your name,” Noctis asked again. He frowned at her, “unless you’re not the person we tied up last night…”

She drew the back of her hand along her forehead, before pushing her hood backwards. Her dull brown hair was gathered into a large, untidy bun. The hairs that strayed from it were illuminated by the sun, setting a tawny glow about her head. Any hair that strayed onto her face was darkened with sweat.

Prompto surfaced with a bottle of water, holding it up victoriously. He re-joined the group. Standing in line with them, he leant forwards and dropped the bottle by her leg, a careful smile spread across his lips. She glanced up at him and watched as he stepped away. A heavy hand landed on the bottle and brought it into her lap. Her head lolled backwards and rested against the bumper. She unscrewed the cap and downed half the bottle. As it crackled back into shape in her lap, her eyes stayed closed.

“So… Your name?”

She turned grey and stopped breathing. Lurching to her side, the boys looked away as the hot, sour smell rose from the ground. When they turned back, a small yellow puddle was sinking into the dirt. Noctis paled and swayed on his feet. She retched again, vomited, spat and settled back to resting against the bumper, neck slick with sweat. Noctis turned around and walked, groaning as he distanced himself.

“Nope. That was definitely me.” She sniffed. Her expression gave nothing away.

“Iggy, what’s-?” Prompto began, his usually rosy cheeks pale under his freckles. Ignis paused before stepping forward. He fluidly dropped to her level and took her wrist. Finding a weak and rapid pulse, the pairs of sharp eyes locked. She watched him, tired but still wary. Breaking his blank façade, he lowered his brows and scanned her features, nose curling at the smell of bile. He stepped back.

“Stand up please, if you can.”

She frowned at him. Putting the bottle to one side, she gripped the car and pushed herself to her feet, swaying for a moment before straightening to her full height. Her breath paused. Her jaw clenched. She turned pale before swallowing. Her eyes fixed on Ignis.

“Rena,” she admitted. Her locked knees dipped occasionally but she didn’t go down. Ignis drew the gloved knuckle of his index finger to his chin. Having not seen her in daylight before, he scanned over her. Gladiolus did the same, searching for weakness.

“She done?” Noctis asked, twenty feet away.

“Yeah, I think she’s done,” Prompto called. He moved more surely than before, picking up the water bottle and handing it back to her, “here.”

She nodded in thanks and took a careful sip.

“You have-.”

“I’m fine,” she said, taking another miniscule sip. Gladiolus bristled at the interruption. Noctis circled back to the group.

“Actually, as indicated by the vomiting and perspiration it can be concluded that you’re in the-.” Noctis turned on his heels and walked away again.

“It’s fine,” she shook her head. “I’ve had worse.”

Noctis joined them, a gleam of sweat across his brow. Rena put the empty bottle on the Regalia before hanging her head again, a wrapped hand wiping sweat from her nape.

“You really ought to, well,” Ignis stumbled over his words. He fixed his eyes on the ground. “It’d help you recover faster if you-.”

She narrowed her eyes, looked around at the group only to let out a deep sigh. She shrugged out of her long, dark coat. Broad shoulders glinted with sweat in the sunlight, pale skin interrupted by the dark straps of a vest. She was tall and well-muscled, forearms peppered with fading purple scars.

“Belt.” Gladiolus commanded, his eyes running over her skin. He searched for bruises, scrapes, scars. Anything that could give her away. She untied the utility belt, revealing the curve of her waist; femininity was a sudden feature. Along its length were several small, leather pouches and in the centre, a sheathed hunting knife. Ignis stepped forwards to take it. She handed it over and swayed. Gladiolus retreated to search through the bags.

“When was the last time you ate?” Prompto asked, fishing in his pockets. He whipped out an energy bar and moved towards her. She shook her head gently. Prompto’s face dropped. “You should eat.”

“Thanks, but,” Rena loosely gestured to the ground, “not really hungry right now.”

“Oh, course, heh,” his voice trailed off. He stayed close to her, examining her face with a fascinated gaze. She looked back at him, eyes wide and mouth closed.

“Prompto,” Ignis hissed. He pushed his glasses up his nose.

“No, but guys, her eyes,” he murmured. “There’s so many colours.”

“Take a picture.” Noctis shook his head, breathing a laugh. “It’ll last longer.”

Prompto jumped, fumbling with his camera. Before she could argue, he’d taken a shot and had rushed over to Noctis to show him. The tired wine stain of her sockets stood out, throwing contrast against the deep, emerald green of bloodshot eyes.

“It may prove useful to keep that,” Ignis muttered.

“Why? In case she gives us the slip?” Noctis mumbled, flicking through a few shots from the day before.

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“Oh, come on guys, she won’t.” Prompto tucked his camera away and turned. “Watch.”

“Wait-.”

“Prompto, what are you-?”

“Don’t!”

He did.

Before anyone could stop him, he’d bounced to his haunches and untied her legs. Rena’s eyes grew wide at him, her brows knitting together. She passed her gaze over each of the group before shifting her legs apart slightly. Breathing a sigh, she tensed each muscle of her legs in turn, standing independently of the Regalia. Gladiolus seethed and moved to the front of the group where he was met by a pair of stony eyes. His jaw clenched. Prompto hadn’t moved from her side. When she stood, the top of her head was an inch clear of his blond hair.

“See? She’s not just gonna run off,” Prompto looked at the group with a crooked smile. When he turned back to her, his mouth dropped. “Right?”

The corner of her lip curled upwards a fraction. She shook her head before accepting a bottle of water from Ignis.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Her hands shook less as she drank.

“You’re welcome,” Ignis bowed his head slightly before repositioning his glasses. “Now-.”

“Plan, Iggy?” Noctis asked, slipping past Gladiolus who had busied himself with packing the gear back into the car. “Do we have one?”

“He’s four cups deep,” Prompto called. He had his camera lined up with the edge of the Regalia, pointed along the onyx curve of the side and to the road ahead until both merged into the soft focus of dust on fire. “The plan’s as good as done already, right Ig?”

“We’d prefer to meet your employers; where are they based?”

“Hunting station a couple of miles north of Hammerhead,” she answered, wiping sweat from her brow as her colour slowly returned. “Wait, I-.”

“Let’s go,” Gladiolus said, dumping her coat into the car. He gripped her elbow and pulled her to the side of the car. “Prompto, you’re with me.”

Squeezed between a tensed bodyguard and a fidgeting blond, Rena stayed quiet and fixed her eyes on the road ahead. She sipped at the water and felt the breeze rush over her clammy skin, smoothing over her cheeks and brushing stray hairs back to catch on the bulk of her makeshift bun. Leide was a fleeting backdrop; the blurred, broad strokes of a distant brush. The car turned onto a straight and accelerated. Colours smeared as the hand of speed dragged them. A deep azure sky, dripping endlessly onto defiant ridges that stood from bleached dirt. Prompto twitched at her side. He pinned his hands between his knees and his mouth repeatedly released squeaks that barely escaped his throat. She offered him a drink, only to have it about knocked out of her grip by his rapid movements.

“What brings you to Leide? Where you from? And how did you learn to fight?! Oh man, let me tell you, I haven’t seen the big guy’s nose so out of joint since-.”

“Prompto.” Gladiolus growled, a vein faintly throbbing in his forehead. He fixed his gaze on the passing scenes.

“He’s got a point,” Noctis said, turning in his seat. He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Who taught you?”

Rena’s lips parted slightly, chapped and peeling. Seafoam eyes watched her from the mirror. Silence lodged in her throat. Noctis let out a scoff before turning back and shrugging into his seat.

“Which direction is it?” Ignis asked, the Regalia purring under his touch. Gladiolus snapped his head around.

“It’s- it’s just up there,” she jumped. She tried to lean forwards, but was pinned by a glare and an elbow to the ribs. “Straight ahead. If you pull over in about a hundred metres, we can walk the rest.”

Ignis gave a nod and carried on. He brought the car to a graceful halt and silenced the engine. They clambered out, stretched and followed Rena through the blistering, sluggish heat. Noctis and Prompto quickly fell behind, panting and dizzied by the blaring sun. She led them to a large, rusting boulder leaning against the sudden crest of a darker ridge. With a brief glance over her shoulder, she slipped into a small crack between the two. Ignis and Gladiolus exchanged a look before following.

They emerged into blinding light and silence. Auburn rock loomed over them. The sun was directly above, burning into the channel. Lean to’s and ripped tents lined the sides of a narrow slip of space. The ground was littered with torn cloth, dropped gil and racing footprints. The high walls had been smoothed by centuries and gave no explanation as she padded forwards in silence. Noctis groaned at the sudden brightness before adjusting and looking around. Ignis drew level with her.

“I don’t-,” she mumbled. Her legs found new energy, pulling her towards the far end of the camp. She dived into a tent and scrambled through a bag.

“Uh, guys, this place is uh, well,” Prompto’s voice trembled a little. He whistled a single note and jumped when it bounced back to him.

“Pieces of shit!” Rena growled, her voice low as she clambered back out. She dropped the bag and wiped sweat from her brow. With her hands on her hips she turned and faced the wall, head hanging again.

“This is… most unfortunate,” Ignis admitted, re-adjusting his glasses and folding his arms. He looked at Noctis, who came closer and whispered.

“What now?”

Rena’s ear twitched backwards. A scratching ceased in a nearby tent. A shaky breath pushed into the silence. Her ear pulled backwards again, this time her head turning with it. She moved closer and crouched.

“Jer?”

A short man burst from the tent and away from her. He skidded to a halt when he caught sight of the other men and turned around. She caught him by the collar and pinned him to a wall.

“What the fuck happened?” She stared at him, her jaw clenched. “Where is everyone? Where’s-?”

“They- they got ambushed!” He squealed. Rena’s expression was unnervingly blank, even as she kept her white-knuckled grip.

“And?”

“They- they was on a hunt! Listen, I don’t know what they was after!” he whined, his Leiden drawl adding to his desperate image. He was a small, stout man. A few wisps of light hair clung to the sides of his head and his jowls shook as he stammered. “They kept talkin’ about some big un’. Said it was gonna make a real pretty penny. Couple of ‘em came back last night screamin’ and- and hollerin’ and covered in blood and I-I!”

“Jer,” she muttered, her voice low and her brows knitted together. “What were they after?”

“I don’t know! Alls- alls I know is they led it back here and it about tore the damn place apart!”

“What did it look like?”

“It was huge! I ain’t never seen a thing so damn big. Had these big ugly teeth and these horns and damn-.”

“Possibly a behemoth…” Ignis’ smooth voice slipped through the air. “They’re rare in this area, but not unheard of. Reportedly they’re even more temperamental than their Duscaean cousins.”

She dropped him and turned away, breathing a sigh. Her hand massaged her nape as she paced. Ignis stepped forwards, his presence pushing the small man against the wall again.

“The packs of sabertusk known to disrupt travellers,” he began coolly, “did you commission her to eliminate them?”

Jer looked up at the lithe figure, his small eyes darting around Ignis’ features.

“Yeah, why?” he scoffed. “She get you fellas to come and beat her price up for her?”

Ignis withdrew, his knuckle to his chin once again. Rena halted. She marched over and glared down at him.

“How much for it?”

“No, nope, now missy. I already said you ain’t getting any-.” He announced, his eyes closed, lips pursed and hands up in dismissal. Jer stopped and opened a beady grey eye. “How much for what now?”

“The behemoth. How much?” Sweat trickled down her temple as the still air of the crevasse roasted around them. The small man narrowed his eyes, folded his arms and replied with hubris.

“Eight.”

“Fuck off,” she grunted. “They’re worth at least ten and you know it.”

“Eight…” he pushed his tongue into his cheek, “and a half.”

“Ten. Plus what you owe me for the sabers,” she narrowed her eyes, stepping forwards and forcing him up against the wall again.

“All right, all right, damn, girl,” Jer shook his head. He pressed his hands into his sagging hips and pursed his thin lips again. “Ten and we call it quits.”

“Oh my fucking-,” Rena gritted her teeth and stared down at him, her face beginning to pull into a snarl. “Fifteen. The behemoth, the sabers and the reapers I cleared out of this shithole. I never work for you again. Deal?”

He hollowed his red, pockmarked cheeks and blew out of his fleshy nose.

“You got yourself a deal there, honey.”

He pushed around her seething form and plodded towards an overturned chair.

“Jer.”

“Mmm?”

“I want it now.” She stood in front of him, fists at her side. He snorted and shook his head.

“Sweetheart, if you think you’re gettin’ it before I see the goods, I suggest you-.”

Jer looked up, greedy little eyes following the form of her legs, hips, lingering too long on her chest before he caught a glimpse of the four men standing behind her. The one with the glasses, who’d questioned him, stood as cold and still as steel. Another could only keep his deep blue eyes fixed as his fingers twitched for a trigger. One was so disinterested that it was concerning. The largest looked like he could rip him in half and had an iron edge to his glare.

Jer swallowed and fumbled for his pocket.

“H-here you go,” he mumbled, hands shaking as he passed over the gil. He stumbled backwards and landed in his chair, sweat running off his balding head. The men walked back to the entrance of the ravine. She turned and followed to leave the mess of tents and broken agreements behind her. Slipping into the crack in the wall, she disappeared.

Under the blazing Leiden sun again, she wiped the sweat from her brow. The rest stood in a circle, urgent whispers fired between them like bullets.

“So, are we actually going after this thing?” Prompto asked, a weak smile across his lips but dread building in his eyes. “We could-.”

“We’re not,” Gladiolus crossed his arms and hit his heel against the ground, rocking back on forth on one foot.

“Wh- what? But we promised that guy and he-,” the blond turned to Rena as she approached the group. He held out his upturned palms, a frown playing across his pale eyebrows.

“We did make an agreement,” Ignis began, narrowing his eyes at her. “Fifteen thousand gil is no small sum. We should convene-.”

“Aw, come on guys! Can’t we just go back now?”

“We’re not going after it,” Gladiolus planted his feet and cocked his head at the flapping mess of Prompto before fixing a hard stare on her. “And there is no ‘we’.”

“I think we should let Rena decide,” he pouted, stilling himself. “Rena? We’re going-.”

“He’s right.”

Prompto’s jaw dropped. His cobalt eyes followed her as she handed him a small bag.

“Wha-? But-?”

“He’s right. I don’t have a death-wish,” She tucked the remaining gil into her pocket before turning to Ignis. She pointed her thumb at Prompto. “There’s three for each of you.”

“I don’t-.”

“For the sabers, the water, the ride,” she gestured to herself, “the whole not killing me thing. Are we done?”

Ignis frowned lightly at her before turning to Noctis. The Prince had a lazy hand draped over his forehead, keeping out what little light his hair didn’t. He shrugged. Prompto’s frown had sunk lower, his eyes passing over the ground as he leant against the boulder.

“Well, legally speaking, you’re still under arrest for treason-.”

A thunderous bellow tore through the air. Weapons were summoned. The long, dark muscle of the behemoth paced along the ridge, chipping the smooth rock under its claws. Fierce chartreuse eyes glared at them. A huge paw swept, throwing chunks of dirt and dry plants into the air. They group pressed themselves against the rockface.

“Oh crap, what do we do?”

“Shut up.”

“Here,” Rena tapped Prompto’s shoulder and edged along the rock, squeezing back into the dark, narrow space. Pebbles and dust rained down. The beast eyed the opening. Lungs froze. Eyes fixed. Nobody moved. A light breeze passed through the gap. The grotesque eye was replaced by a collection of claws, tearing at the boulder. With too little room to swing, Gladiolus stabbed at the limb. Light and dust showered down.

“Shit.”

“H-hey, you’ve got a way out of this, right?” Prompto choked on the dust, turning his head as the darkness of the passage flickered with light. “Rena? Where’d she-?”

The other boys turned. She was gone. All that between Prompto and a dead end was still, glittering space. His face fell. A hoarse whine left his throat. With every push, the stream of light above them widened. They pressed tighter to the rock. It roared and grunted, tearing at their shelter. Something gripped Prompto’s shirt and hauled him into a narrow, dark crack in the stone.

“Get the rest of them! Now!”

Prompto nodded and leant back out.

“Guys! Come on!” his voice cracked, pulling Noctis into the gap. The others followed, dashing into the tight space.

They emerged into a tunnel. Above them, there was a crack big enough to squeeze a hand through. Just. A narrow seam of pale yellow poured through it, splitting the darkness. Sweating in the still, dry air, Gladiolus eyed the gap. He brought his focus down. Ignis was in front of him, daggers at the ready. Noctis was clutching his sword, eyes fixed on the blinding seam. The group ended there.

“Oh, where the f-?”

“Quiet,” Ignis urged, his focus on the shimmering light above them. “It’s still-.”

“Yeah? Cause Prompto isn’t!” Gladiolus spat, his voice rising. Noctis turned to the absence. He searched the limits of the walls for a crack, a split, a tunnel, anything. “I fucking knew it! She trapped us in here, she attacked Noct and now she’s got-!”

“She didn’t attack me! Okay?”

Silence filled the air.

“What?” Gladiolus asked, his voice dangerously low, daring Noctis for an answer. The light streamed down over the side of his face, illuminating the stretch of his scar and setting an amber eye into inferno.

“She didn’t attack me,” Noctis began, his eyes wide. “We kinda just ran into each other.”

The air between the three of them stilled, heated by the glares of the sun and fierce eyes.

“Why didn’t you-?”

“Hey, guys!” Prompto whispered, poking his head into the chamber. “Come on! It’s this way.”

Noctis and Ignis followed the blond through a small, low crack in the rock. Gladiolus seethed and ducked through. He stepped into a channel barely wider than his shoulders, the smooth walls showing their ancient grain in hot shades, a fire smeared by it’s passing. The stone trembled. The huge, dark mass of the beast leapt overhead, it’s tail sweeping above his head. He held his breath and felt a single drip of sweat run from his temple. The Shield had make a choice; left, or right?

He followed the sinking sun into the darker passages. The behemoth growled overhead, claws scraping the rough stone. The walls squeezed him, pressing him to edge sideways through the narrow paths. A new choice appeared. He went left. Once around the corner, another appeared. His gut sank as he was met with the same choice, over and over. He paused. The behemoth had paused, it’s muzzle passing nearby. Lips drawn back over it’s teeth, it breathed a guttural threat as two large, sour green eyes stared down at him. He clenched his jaw and readied his weapon.

Just as yellow daggers crashed down above his head, Gladiolus was forced onto his side. The beast’s forearm was stuck, claws inches from the ground he’d been standing on. He jumped to his feet. He swung his blade through the limited space. Blood gushed from the wound. The behemoth howled and wrestled the limb out of harm’s way.

“You alright?”

Blurring around the edges, his vision snagged on Rena. Her shoulders bore dusty red grazes and her brows had gathered into a frown. Metallic bitterness filled his nostrils.

“Where are they?”

“This way,” she slipped through the maze.

His heavy footsteps followed. She paused. His scowl turned into a grimace as the air turned rank with metal and flesh. Looming above them, curved yellow daggers chipped into the rock. A dark seam of blood lowered in front of them. Barely breathing, Rena continued to sidle through the channel, silent and wary. He followed. She turned corner after corner, endlessly darting through déjà vu. The channel narrowed. They stopped.

Beyond the opening, a wide expanse roasted in the sun. Three dark figures huddled in the centre, scanning the perimeter. The sinking sun cast the shadow of twisted horns onto the ground. The behemoth leapt into the clearing, closing in on them with slow, cruel intent.

They burst from the maze. Gladiolus brought his greatsword into hand and grazed beast’s side. Claws raked the ground as he rolled away. Ignis sent his lance through the air, only to summon it back from the bleeding hindquarter. Noctis warped, a flash of blue and steel. Prompto took aim, his arm stiff and shaking.

The behemoth took a swipe at Ignis, slicing through air. He was pushed aside. Prompto fired. It lunged for him. Rena fixed on the frozen blond. She raced towards him. Grabbing his shirt as she passed, she dragged him beyond the reach of the long, arcane claws. Prompto’s eyes were wide on his paling face.

“Hey! Fuck- listen!” she grasped his shoulder. His eyes focused on her. “Got a weapon? Anything?”

Prompto nodded weakly, then shook his head. His hands feverishly reloaded his handgun. She clenched her jaw and bolted away from him, his gun already raised to aim at the behemoth’s neck.

The snarling beast drowned out the shouts of the others. It paced towards Ignis. Dust flew as she skidded to a halt. A frown pushed onto her face. She began racing towards the slender form. Acrid green eyes locked onto her as she came closer. Weaving towards it, she ducked under its low, bellowing chest and sprinted to one side. The behemoth scrambled to catch her. A claw ripped her calf. She twisted onto her back and scuttled away. Bearing down on her with snapping jaws, the behemoth glared past a wrinkled muzzle.

Noctis appeared next to its head, only to fall to the ground. He was pale, clammy with sweat. The glimmering blue of his magic burned out in the air like ashes. The behemoth snapped at him. Jaws dripping, it raised its head with a deep growl. Rena paused. She dashed towards the crawling prince and dragged him behind a boulder.

“Knife? Anything?”

Noctis shook his head and tried to focus on her. His eyes kept swiping over her features like a child dizzy from too much spinning. He frowned at her. A grimace fixed on her face as she paused, before sprinting away.

The massive, dark form had caught sight of Ignis again. The beast struck. It smacked him aside with all the effort of a cat with a ball. Gladiolus appeared over him. The broad steel flashed in the sun as he sliced through its shoulder. The behemoth howled and swung around to bear down on him. Rena crouched over Ignis. He cradled his right hand, breath hissing through gritted teeth.

“Have you got anything?”

Ignis’ lance had dissipated into crystals before he’d hit the ground. Blood drenched his fingers. A sharp fragment of red rock stood foreign in his palm. Fixing on his hand, she hastily unwrapped one of her own and gingerly tied the dark cloth around his, avoiding the stone. A burst of dark crystals put a dagger into his shaking grip

“Here,” he gripped the blade, his hands trembling as much as his breath. He nodded and pushed the handle towards her. She took it and hauled him to the same boulder that concealed Noctis. The Prince was still shaking. His eyes widened at Ignis.

Rena tightened her grip and peered out from the boulder. She hesitated. Gladiolus, roaring and striking at every limb that came his way, was running out of space. The behemoth was forcing him backwards, pinning him into a corner.

He could feel the air stilling behind him, filling with the rank, metallic bitterness of blood and the jaws in front of him. It snarled at him, fangs dripping and razor sharp. His shoulders brushed the rock. He brought the blade up and found no room to swing it. Sweat pouring and head pounding, he raised the sword and readied it to strike. He’d have to blind it. Hit it smack on the muzzle to run out and give him time. Space. The hulking form of the behemoth threw a shadow over him. Trapped in an infernal darkness and blinded by the sudden change of light, he gritted his teeth. The beast opened its jaws above him. He could feel the heat of its breath on his skin. The putrid smell of death and blood poured from it. Teeth flashed in the shadows.

A quick shape slipped beneath its neck.

It poured darkly. A dull, rank odour steamed from the forming pool. Light turned the air above Gladiolus clear. Dagger in hand and eyes wide, she faced the beast. Blood dropped lazily to stain the ground beneath it. Bullets peppered the side of its head. The behemoth turned and stalked Prompto. Gladiolus charged. He ducked under its raised head and spun, swinging the greatsword with a roar. He tore through the hot, bitter air.

Through its throat.

The behemoth gave a dull cry and dropped.

Gladiolus dismissed his sword. Wiping a hand across his forehead, he shook his head and felt the pain pulling between his temples. He turned towards the blazing horizon, skin cast into a deep tan under the ink. A figure rushed towards him.

“Hey,” she panted. His glare stopped her in her tracks, amber eyes furious under a heavy frown. “You guys have a first aid kit?”

Dark brows lifted, and eyes blinked away their fire.

Over her shoulder Ignis approached, clutching his hand. He was pale and unsteady, his shirt stained dark. Noctis was with him, a hand behind his back. The Shield barrelled towards them. Ignis shook his head and winced when Gladiolus pulled the wounded hand from his chest. Worry turned his eyes dark.

“Close one guys! Hey, what-?” Prompto jogged into the group and fixed on Ignis. Bright blue eyes flicked across each of the group before scanning Ignis. Rena appeared at his shoulder.

“Hey, do you guys keep a med kit? Potions?” she fixed on him.

“There’s one in the Regalia… compartment under the passenger seat,” Ignis spoke through gritted teeth. A blue flash and the sinking fragments of Noctis’ magic appeared at his side as he warped away. Ignis swayed. Prompto ducked under his arm and held him up. “We should make camp for the night. Gladio-.”

“On it,” he muttered softly.

He leant down, slipped an arm around the fading advisor and raised his eyes to lock with Rena’s. She nodded and led the way back to the opening of the maze.

They followed her through the channels, emerging again where the boulder had stood. It was a few metres from the rock, looking lonely and lost. The sinking sun had set half on fire, mineral veins sparkling on its bulk, and thrown the other into shadow. Noctis was jogging back from the car. He handed the kit to Rena, before returning to the Regalia with Gladiolus. The blonds followed her through the narrow gap and into the camp.

A deep band of russet light painted the top of the eastern wall. Below that, it was blue. She ushered them into a tent and opened the kit. Prompto laid Ignis down and constantly muttered. She pulled out a lamp and let dim, pale light fill the tent. Rena unwrapped her other hand and packed the cloth into her pocket. Ignis stared. Her knuckles were covered in thick, scarred skin that opened new cuts with every move she made. The dried blood was black against her pale skin.

“It’s not contagious,” she said as she dug through the kit, pulling on a pair of clean, white latex gloves. She looked at him, her brows knitted. “Any pain relief in here?”

Ignis shook his head. He was pale and hissing in pain, still clutching his right wrist. His neck was beading sweat. She reached for his wrist. Her hands were long and warm against his skin as she stretched his arm to its full length. He winced as the changing gravity pushed the fragment into his palm. Prompto’s continued fretting earned him a sharp stare from Rena. He clamped his pale lips together before launching into a shaking tone.

“You- you know what you’re doing right? He’s uh, he’s not gonna lose a hand or anything? I just- I mean, cause he’s-.”

“He’ll be fine,” she confirmed, locking eyes with Prompto.

“You’re sure? I mean it’s usually Iggy who does these kind of things, fixing people up, right bud?” he smiled nervously down at him. Jaw clenched, seafoam eyes glared up at him, equally nervous and irritated.

Rena braced the back of Ignis’ hand with her fingers, holding it upright and still. She pressed her knee into his arm, just below his shoulder. He hissed a sharp inhale as she transferred more weight to it. With her other arm, she plucked supplies from the kit.

“Are you wearing a belt?” she asked, her dark green eyes fixed on Prompto. He flustered for a moment before placing it in her waiting hand.

“Tourniquets are not advisable- argh- in terms of-.”

“I’m not gonna do a tourniquet,” she assured, folding the belt against her thigh. She held it near his mouth. “Here.”

Ignis closed his mouth firmly. She loosened her grip on his injured hand. His neck strained at the loss of support. He regained his composure with deep breaths before clamping the belt between his teeth. She pinched his forearm. The white marks lingered. She pressed her knee harder into his shoulder and opened a bottle of water with her free hand.

Her fingers delicately peeled the cloth from his hand, black and reeking with blood. He barely winced. Prompto mumbled quiet encouragements at his side, becoming fascinated by her. Still bracing his hand in hers, she pulled a small pair of scissors from the kit. Before Ignis could protest, she’d cut his soaked glove and was peeling it from his hand, avoiding the fragment embedded in his palm.

Blood flowed steadily from around the rock. She bit the inside of her lip and examined the wound. A soft frown pulled her dark eyebrows together. She looked at Prompto. He grabbed onto Ignis’ other hand, his deep blue eyes set on the ground. She moved her focus to Ignis.

“Sorry.”

Before he could argue, she gripped the stone and wrenched it out. Ignis muffled a groan through the belt and bit down hard. She poured water over it. Grit and blood washed from the dark, angry gash in his hand. Ignis kicked his heel against the ground. Rena stopped. She let the wound bleed for a moment, then rubbed the drip that had trickled down his arm, smearing red against pale skin. Smooth. No sand, no grit. Clean blood.

She pushed a wad of clean, white cloth into his palm. Ignis clenched the belt between his teeth. Her eyes fixed on a corner of the tent, blank in concentration, fingertips tracing the back of his hand.

“Well, good news is nothing’s broken,” she offered. The tent was full of the bitter tangs of blood and sweat. She pulled the cloth away, watching as the wound filled with blood again. She pressed a fresh cloth to it and gripped his hand.

The tent flap rustled. Noctis poked his head in. His sapphire gaze flew around the tent before fixing on Ignis. Prompto gave him a weak smile.

“Gladio’s got a fire going. Is there anything we can do to, you know, to help?” he asked. Rena twisted to look at him.

“Do you guys still have my belt?”

“Yeah, it’s- why?” Noctis asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as puzzlement crossed his features.

“It’s got something that’ll help,” she began, checking the wound again. She twisted back around to him, still pinning Ignis’ shoulder. “Can you get it? Please?”

Noctis nodded and mumbled some confirmation before disappearing. A deep voice rumbled in sharp whispers outside the tent. As one set of heavy footsteps faded another, lighter pair drummed outside the tent, pacing back and forth. Rena checked the wound again. The angry flesh took longer to darken, but not long enough.

“You a haemophiliac or something?” she asked. Her voice was low and smooth. Ignis shook his head weakly and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his skin.

Footsteps pounded back to the tent. Gladiolus crouched into the tent, clutching the belt in his hand. Rena twisted around again, locking eyes with him. He didn’t pass it to her.

“Third bag from the buckle.” Her tone was even. He pulled at the fastenings and gave her the small, soft pouch. He withdrew from the tent. She pulled the contents out, collecting it in her hand. Ignis raised his wobbling head. Pinning the material to her palm with a finger, she lifted the other three to show him.

“Is that-?”

“Sphagnym? Yeah,” she gave a small smile.

She gingerly pulled the cloth from the gash and stuffed the moss in. Ignis’ free hand formed a fist. Holding another fresh fold of cloth to the wound, she was quick to wrap his hand in dry, clean bandage. She eased her knee from his arm and placed his hand on his chest. Prompto loosened his shaking grip. Ignis cradled his hand as it rose and fell on his chest. His breaths were deliberately slowed. She passed him the rest of the water.

“Drink up,” she instructed, softness edging into her voice. She turned to Prompto with tired but nondescript eyes. “Do you have anything he could eat?”

Prompto fished in his pockets and pulled out the energy bar. He opened one end and passed it to Ignis.

“Thank you,” he breathed, pausing before he took a bite. “Both of you.”

A wide grin spread across Prompto’s face before he dashed from the tent. Rena gave a small nod, packed away the supplies and turned the lamp down before leaving him. As she left the tent, the other three were heading in.

She paused in the glow of the campfire. The walls were painted a soft but brilliant orange, shifting delicately as the flames danced. An inky river, dotted with a million white feathers, was flowing above her. Smoke bridged the two worlds. A thick and transient cloak, gilded with sparks, rose from the sun sitting on the ground. The world was upside down, and the right way up, all at once.

Rena wandered to the end of the camp, glancing into the ransacked tents. She ducked into one that had been home for the last month. Her rucksack was spilled across the ground, bedroll thoroughly shaken of concealed supplies. She heaved a sigh. The thin canvas, that had once offered so much privacy, suddenly felt as much like walls as skin did armour.

Her eyes fixed on a snag in the fabric. She grasped the pale cloth and tore it, the scream of ripping threads bouncing against the walls. She flushed the gash in her leg with water, before leaving it unbound.

You’ll live.

After wrapping her hands, she dug the old bindings from her pocket. They’d been white once. Leiden dust, blood and a hundred other stains had made them dark. She absentmindedly turned them over in her fingers. Light footsteps approached.

“Hey,” the cheerful blond crouched at the opening to her tent, eyes wide in the darkness. “We were just about to eat, you hungry?”

Discomfort writhed in her gut. She shook her head gently at him. “Nah, I’m okay. Thanks, though.”

Pale brows drew together. He took a deep breath.

“Look, what you did today? For Iggy, for all of us? I- I think we owe you more than dinner,” he whispered. He was small, a little scrawny. Spirited. Ignoring the claws of an empty stomach, she shook her head again. “We make a pretty good team, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s alright. Plus, ‘there is no we’.”

“Sure there is! That’s what we were doing today! We were being a ‘we’! We took down a behemoth! We nearly died doing it, I guess, but that’s not the point!” His whispers were rushed with excitement as he bounced on his haunches. She tilted her head at him.

“I’m not-.”

“Please.”

“...Fine.”

Legs stiff, she emerged from the tent. Prompto flitted around her, practically skipping towards the figures by the fire. He turned around to make sure she was still following. Rena had folded her arms and was pacing slowly, jaw clenched at the weight of tired limbs. Gladiolus sat on a chair, his back to the wall. From there, he could see the entire length of the passage. He bristled when the tall, dark figure followed Prompto into the glow of the fire.

“Hey, where’s Noct?” the blond asked, his brows furrowed at the lone bodyguard. He held a finger to his lips and pointed his gaze at their tent. Prompto whined quietly. “Already?”

Shaking disappointment like water from feathers, he took the crumb-covered plate from the chair and dropped into it. Rena had settled herself nearer the edge of glow. She sat on the ground, legs crossed and shoulders forwards. Prompto jumped from his seat and brought her a plate, an apology written on his elfish features.

“It’s uh, it’s not much. Or that good, really,” he scratched the back of his head. “Iggy usually does the cooking- he’s great. He’s got a gift, right big guy?”

Gladiolus grumbled an agreement, his eyes narrowing as she moved the plate to the side and abandoned it quietly. The fire made her skin glow a warm gold against dark hair, brows, eyes that all helped blend her back into the night, blurring her edges. They gave nothing away. She knows I’m looking at her, he thought, only a matter of time. A tingle ran up her spine, shaking her. There it is. Prompto noticed her hands trembling.

“Are you cold? We- we could get your coat or a blanket or?” He asked, his voice soft and bright. She shook her head.

“Nah,” she answered in a low, quiet voice. “It’s a relief, after earlier.” She shook the pain from her knuckles before intertwining her fingers.

“Where you from?” Gladiolus pressed, his rough voice taking her by surprise. She moved her focus to him. From the other side of the fire he looked formidable. Already deep brown eyes were black under heavy brows, the flames throwing light over his arms, defining every muscle that would rejoice in snapping her neck. His fiery stare was met by a stony one.

“Cleigne.”

“Lestallum?”

“Hah, no. Middle of nowhere,” she breathed a laugh. She nodded slowly, playing with her hands. “You ever been to the mountains to the south, near Malmalam?”

“Once. You’re pretty far from home,” the Shield grunted quietly, leaning back in his chair. He narrowed his eyes. “What brought you out here?”

“What brings anyone out here?” she asked, revealing a set of worn dog tags in her palm. She stuffed them back into her pocket. “People to feed.”

He watched the fire with lazy eyes, chewing on his thoughts. Prompto had stilled to examine the days photographs. The screen put him in a pale haze as he chewed his nails. Darkness dripped from the iridescent blue above into the bright warmth of the fire. The entire world was a tiny grotto, glowing in the darkness. Somewhere an infinite ocean met a roaring sun in silence.

A sudden spark from the flames prompted Gladiolus. He flicked his eyes to her, then back at the flames.

“Malmalam’s rough,” he considered, turning the idea over in his mind. “Keep hearing stories of some pretty mean stuff. They true?”

“That must be how you learned, right? I mean, growing up around all that stuff? No wonder you can fight,” Prompto blurted, a little too loudly. He’d put his camera on his lap and was resting his chin on his fists. Gladiolus fixed on her again.

“Who taught you?”

She puffed out a long breath, looked at each of them, then at the fire.

“Life, I guess? School of hard knocks,” she nodded slowly, pulling at the bindings on her hands.

Gladiolus watched the bright embers at the base of the fire as they smouldered; the hot, crackling bones of dead shade. The flames danced lazily, swaying from the fuel. He could feel his chin dropping forwards, suddenly too heavy under the weight of a headache. For the inside of his eyelids, it was bright. Loud. It stank of blood. Long, yellow teeth and menacing green eyes shimmered in the darkness. It was drawing back to strike. The jaws burst forwards.

His entire body jolted as though he’d been dropped to the ground.

It sometimes scared Prompto how quickly Gladiolus could go from softening under the caress of sleep to holding a fierce glare. Prompto hid behind his phone and the ruse of Kings Knight. Flames reflecting in his dark eyes, he pulled his brows together and fixed on Rena.

“Why did you do it?”

She looked at him. He tried to read her face, running through snippets of the psychology books Ignis kept in the glovebox. She gave him nothing.

“You could’ve left. I saw you,” he continued, curiosity urging the words out before he could stop himself. “You thought about it, and you didn’t. Why?”

She paused. Her smooth, low voice passed over the quiet hiss of a burning log.

“He helped me.”

Gladiolus watched her, waiting for more explanation, some sign she was lying, anything. A soft frown pulled onto her features.

“He helped. I could’ve left, and he could’ve not helped me, but he did,” her voice was laced with the conviction her face didn’t show. “You all helped me. You didn’t have to.”

Prompto was choking on a reply when a look from Gladiolus silenced him. He reconsidered. A softer silence blanketed the trio. After a few minutes, Prompto caught himself yawning, stretching back into shape with a miniscule squeak.

“Well, I’m beat. Think I’m gonna hit the hay,” Prompto announced. He pulled himself to his feet, traded small smiles with Gladiolus and Rena before ducking into the tent.

Rena decided on something similar and rose to her feet. The last man watched her start to disappear from the glow of the fire.

“Hey.”

She stopped and turned her head. He held her knife up by the blade.

“Why didn’t you cut yourself loose?”

She paused.

“Nothing to hide.”

She walked away on stiff legs. Suddenly Gladiolus was alone again. He breathed a heavy sigh before letting his pounding head fall back. The warm glow of the softening flames painted his skin a rich hue up to his beard. His face was washed in deep blue as he watched the stars. The sky was full and clear. A million suns reflected in the pools of his eyes; infinite flames burning in amber braziers. He took a deep breath and accepted silence, solitude and the first watch.

Dawn came trickling down the western wall of the channel. By the time the tide of light came crashing into the bow of the tent, Gladiolus was awake. The others were still asleep. Resting his elbows on his knees, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to straighten out the knot in his neck. The remains of the fire smoked gently at his feet. He peered into the soft blue of the tent. Ignis was beginning to stir from his motionless sleep. Noctis was out cold, but still breathing, his foot resting over Ignis’ leg. Curled around Gladiolus’ unused bedroll was a mop of blond hair and a tangle of limbs that grabbed anything close enough. He’d woke up with Prompto’s vice grip around his arm more than once. Satisfied, he slipped through the channel and out into the open.

The light in the cavern had been softened by the walls, glittered with falling dust. It was harsher in the open dust bowl. Finishing his stretches, he began to run. Deep breaths filled his lungs with cool, fresh air. Yesterday’s hot blue sky was gone. Sweat formed a sheen across his brow as he ran, harder and faster than the day before. He reached the halfway mark and got little further.

Blood pooled from behind a shrub, steaming and sinking away. Caution grazed the back of his neck like a cold breath He stepped forwards. The long, slim legs of an anak were limp and splayed on the ground. A single red line interrupted the pale throat. The belly was split and empty. Sections of flesh had been pared from the bones. The entire body was still steaming with life. It had been carefully butchered. Recently.

Within minutes, he was barging back into the cavern. He barrelled straight into the tent, disturbing a slumbering Noctis. He rummaged in his pack. Eventually he reached the bottom and found the hunting knife. He unsheathed it. Perfectly clean, dry and still cold. He buried it again. Upon ducking out of the tent, a lean figure caught his attention.

“Good morning,” Ignis drawled. As graceful and composed as ever, he held a steaming mug of Ebony in one hand and crossed his long legs. His eyes were fixed on the makeshift kitchen and the hands working at it.

“Mornin’,” he said thickly. He was at the table in three strides, leant over the rising scent of frying onions, sizzling meat and toasting bread. Rena worked at the stove, calm and quiet. Her dark green eyes locked on his when he intruded, flashing a muted warning.

“If you’re quite finished eyeing breakfast, I suggest you take a seat.”

Gladiolus stalked to his chair. He raised a brow at Ignis, who nursed his coffee. Judging by his eloquence and the way he was glaring at the ashes, he was three cups in. He fixed a stare on Rena again, watching deft hands work. Ignis rolled his eyes.

“Relax, Gladio. I’ve observed everything,” he soothed. The Shield grumbled and stalked to the tent.

“Hey guys,” came croaking from a chaos of blond hair. Prompto dropped into a chair. He swept his hair from his eyes and blinked through the final stretch into consciousness. Cornflower blue eyes settled on Ignis and widened. He focused on Rena, sprang to his feet, leapt over to the table and peered at breakfast with curious eyes. She handed him a plate and gestured to Ignis.

Noctis was slung over a shoulder, still snoring, when he was unceremoniously dumped into a seat. Prompto managed to slip a plate onto his lap. Noctis woke up nose first. The steaming breakfast on his lap warmed his face and scents taunted an empty stomach. Now fully alert, Prompto squinted at his breakfast. Sitting with the familiar fried eggs and toast, was a small, black slice of… something. He prodded it with his fork, before noticing Gladiolus had already raised an eyebrow at Ignis.

“We’ve run precariously low on supplies again,” he sighed, slicing into his breakfast. “You were on your run, you two were unconscious, I’ve been incapacitated. Rena was awake and has kindly prepared a Cleigne delicacy for us.”

“Still… what is it?” Noctis asked, his voice hoarse and airy from sleep. Sapphire eyes bounced between the two of them, and the mystery on his plate. She scrubbed the grill down in silence, working her way through a bottle of water.

“Sangruna. The name translates to ‘coal’, I believe…” Ignis trailed off, his focus directed to the steaming morsel perched on the end of his fork. Prompto shrugged and took a bite of his. Ignis turned to Rena with an expectant look on his face.

“’Blood coals’, if you’re being pedantic.”

“What?!”

The blond squealed, food spraying from his mouth. A wry smile twitched at her lips before being dismissed. Prompto tried to wipe the shock from his face and the mess from his front. He failed. His expression shifted from her to Ignis, who had glazed over in the presence of new flavours. Noctis pushed his to the edge of his plate and continued with his eggs like nothing had happened. Wide eyes settled on Gladio.

The Shield huffed before picking up the abomination between finger and thumb. He took a large bite. After the blackened crust, the inside was a deep red. It was soft and had a silken mouthfeel; rich, strong and impossibly meaty. His determined chewing slowed to reconsider. He swallowed thickly and shrugged. Prompto was horrified.

“Rather famously, a recipe has never been recorded,” Ignis announced between mouthfuls. Gladiolus found himself dipping the remaining crescent into the deep gold of a yolk. Pride glinted from behind fogged glasses. Ignis held up a sheet of paper. “Until now.”

“So… Why are we eating blood for breakfast?” Gladiolus timed his question perfectly. Prompto gagged. Noctis’ hand turned into a fist, pounding the side of his own knee.

“It’ll help pull his iron levels back up,” Rena’s voice was smooth and low, gathering their attention. Her gaze fixed keenly on Ignis. “You should be able to take the thing off now.”

He nodded and put his plate to the side. The fingers of his left hand fumbled with the edge of the bandage. Gladiolus hauled himself to his feet before picking at the white fabric on an elegant, outstretched hand. The younger boys padded over, eyes fixed on the hand. Prompto shuddered. It had been so bloody; smooth, supple skin interrupted and raw. He’d never seen Ignis come so close to losing his composure. Guilt twisted in his gut. It could’ve been much worse. You had the shot lined up! Why didn’t you just do it?

He was the first to draw a soft gasp when tanned fingers removed the wad of moss from the wound. Gladiolus ran a thumb across the new skin, drawing Ignis into a momentary wince. He shot an apologetic look with soft brown eyes. Noctis openly gawked at the fresh, thin skin.

“The properties of sphagnym are not to be underestimated,” Ignis noted, flexing his hand. The fresh skin tore at an edge, releasing a single drop of vivid red blood. He tutted and replaced the bandage. The others retreated to their seats, eyebrows high.

Prompto had been sitting on needles, shuffling in his chair as some confession lodged in his throat. His fingers stretched the rips of his trousers. Conversation ambled between the others. Crowded by his own silence, he felt eyes watching him. Rena had finished cleaning the kitchen and was sitting on the ground a few feet from the main circle. Her gaze fixed on him, dark eyes softening. He swallowed thickly and focused loosely on the remnants of the fire.

“Hey- hey guys?”

The casual words flitting between them perched on their shoulders. Prompto was being watched by a spectrum of eyes.  The weight in his stomach tripled. One small nod of encouragement from Rena and he spat the shaking words from his mouth.

“IwasthinkingofjoiningtheCrownsguard.”

Simultaneous frowns felt like punches. Oh, Six. Prompto curled in on himself, fingers pinching the skin of his elbows as a furious blush washed over him.

“Uh… what?”

Prompto drew deep breaths into his heavy lungs and screwed his eyes shut.

“I was thinking, when we- when we get back, I was thinking about joining… The Crownsguard.”

“Okay,” Noctis began, before the others could speak their minds. Ignis’ expression had hardened, reading the scrawny blond like an open, unimpressive book.

“Really?” Gladiolus pressed, a heavy frown on his face. Prompto shrank. Perched on his chair, his knees were pulled to hide his trembling chin. He nodded weakly.

“I just- I wanna be more useful and -.”

“Useful would be a start.” The growl was low and cruel. The Shield earned a hard stare from sapphire eyes.

“Heh, I-I guess…” he laughed shakily, his eyes beginning to heat and redden around the blue.

“One can never cease improving,” Ignis began, cool and calm. “However-.”

“I think it’s a great idea, and he can do what he wants,” Noctis cut in, holding up his hands. “What’re we doing today?”

“We were due to arrive in Insomnia last night, leaving little option but to return today,” he informed, more than asked. He picked a crumb from his trouser leg, flicking it away dismissively.

“Sounds good,” Noctis nodded, then drew his brows together. “Where you headed? We could give you a ride.”

Rena had been watching in silence, observing every twisting feature and hurling word. Prompto’s watery eyes and shaking breaths slowed when he focused on her. A still face and unreadable eyes refused to betray her frantic mind.

“Insomnia, actually.”

What the fuck have you just done?

“Great, we won’t have to make a detour. Let’s go?” Noctis offered, twirling the keys on his finger. Ignis sipped the last of his coffee.

“Insomnia it is.”


	3. Reminscence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months later and lives have changed beyond recognition. Rena is faced with the choices of her past and future while the present remain chaotic.

Prompto landed flat on his back with a thud.

“I… yield,” he wheezed.

A ragged sigh heaved from a few feet away.

“Again?”

“Yep,” he squeaked, hauling air back into his lungs. He sprang to his feet, dizzy from the sudden elevation and shook his head back into focus. He avoided the eyes locked on him.

“Do you want to go again?”

“Maybe I’m just not cut out-.”

“Not what I asked.”

Dark eyes were waiting under brows were fixed in a soft frown. Rena turned the sword in her hand.

“Come on,” she spurred. “One more, before he swaps us over.”

Prompto sniffed and nodded, readying wooden daggers. They felt clumsy in his hands. _Extensions of your arms_ , Ignis had said, _part of you_. They felt as foreign to him as the sword, the axe, the shield, the lance… Everything. Blue eyes met green. He pulled deeper breaths through clenched teeth.

He flew forward, a mess of limbs and training gear. She blocked the wood intended to tap her side, ducked the one meant for her temple and knocked the first flying again. He had one knife. She had a sword at his neck.

“Watch my feet,” she stepped away, lowering her weapon. Rena began to circle him. “Where am I going?”

He shuffled backwards and focused on a pair of scuffed, brown boots.

“Eyes up here, though,” she breathed a laugh.

Prompto grinned weakly before letting out a battle cry. He pounced at her, dagger first. She blocked him, hooked her foot behind his leg and brought him to the ground. The impact forced the air from his lungs once again.

“Oh, man… _ouch_ ,” he whined, turning onto his side. “What’s the score now?”

“Sorry. Thirty-seven, eight.” She said, her voice hushed and reluctant. Prompto huffed and pulled at his hair. He looked up at an outstretched hand.

“Let Argentum pick himself up.”

The cool rumble of the marshal made Prompto’s chest cave. She swallowed and withdrew her hand, clasping her palms behind her back. Standing to attention had become muscle memory in fast weeks.

“Sir.”

Prompto forced himself to his feet, suddenly feeling twice as heavy and half as tall. He stood and addressed Cor with a shaking voice.

“Marshal.”

He prowled between the two of them, glacial stare fixed on her. His head snapped to Prompto. In the corner of her eye she could see the blond shrink, electric eyes dampened by fatigue and failure. His mouth opened to offer explanation.

“Enough,” he grumbled. Prompto’s pale lips pressed together, hard enough to hide the trembling.

“Change!” Cor barked. The blond jumped. He gave a weak smile to Rena before shuffling to the next ready opponent.

The trainees were in a circle of pairs on the field. Above the intensity of the floodlights, the sky had turned from deep orange to inky blue over the hours spent there. In the heart of the city it was hard to tell where the lights stopped, and stars began. It was a merging of worlds manmade and divine. Even under the transient, rippling silk of the King’s magic, Insomnia bustled whilst the rest of the world slept.

Rena turned to face her new match. About the same height as Prompto. Squat with muscles. A tanned hand gripped a wooden axe, knuckles bruised and bloody.

“Evening, Lauritas,” he lilted. His nose was thick and crooked, hanging over a sparse moustache. “Miss your little blond boyfriend already?”

“Want him for yourself?” Rena asked, turning the hilt in her hand. Black eyes were locked on her.

“Not my type,” he winked.

He swung the axe at her side. She stepped backwards, calm and balanced. His features knotted into a snarl as he hacked through the air again. Rena moved and caught the underside of his weapon with her sword. He crashed into the ground with a dull thump, his axe still swinging on a wooden blade. The handle lowered to his face, inches from glaring eyes and insistent on a second attempt.

He grabbed it and took too long to think. By the time he’d tried to hack at her legs, she’d landed a blow on his wrist. He grumbled and squeezed the forming welt, staring daggers at her neutral expression.

“Lauritas!”

The Marshal’s call jolted her opponent. She turned and again, stood to attention.

“In the centre. Immediately.”

“Sir.”

Over the course of the evening, Marshal Leonis had been patrolling the wall of recruits. He’d chosen his first pair at sundown. Another three had since been summoned. Surrounded by grunting and frantic peers, they were the eye of the storm. Silent. Unnerving. They moved so smoothly they seemed still; a statue at the centre of a tempestuous fountain. Sparring was a dance, violence an art; something they had perfected.

They had one purpose; discipline.

Rena saw the look on Prompto’s face. Wide cobalt eyes, open mouth, dismay paling his cheeks. She gave a single nod, stood tall and walked towards the dreaded few with a loose grip on a wooden sword.

She stopped a few feet from them. Her gaze was sharp and steady on the first that turned to her. A mismatched pair of eyes, one brown and one blue, coursed over her before locking on hers with curiosity and thought. All others remained fixed on their partners. He was a few inches taller than her, lithe and poised, even at ease. A thin smile crept onto his lips, extended by a scar over his cheek.

“I guess you’re the last of ‘em,” he smiled with sharp features. The long dagger glinted in his hand. They used metal. “Wonder why-.”

 _“Enough!”_ Cor thundered.

In a drumbeat of boots, each and every recruit on the field was at attention, watching as he prowled through the silence. He was formidable in black. His frown was as permanent and sharp as the katana at his side. An unmoving expression, carved in militant focus for decades. He cast his eyes over the trainees and spoke in a deep, resounding tone.

“You are dismissed.”

The recruits left the field as a slow, groaning cloud of grey uniforms, backs darkened by sweat and chests bloodied by freshly broken noses. Prompto flitted through the crowd before joining Rena at the back. He smiled, at first. Frantic eyes searched her for bruises, cuts, welts, broken fingers and missing teeth; the marks of the centre.

“Showed ‘em who’s boss, I like it,” he grinned. A tired smile crept onto her features as she shook her head, bun wobbling gently.

“Nah,” she sighed, frowning softly. Reinvigorated by freedom and the chance of a hot shower, Prompto had regained his faster movements.

“Hey, do you wanna get something to eat?” Blue eyes as wide as a summer sky looked up from his phone.

“Not hungry. Thanks, though.”

“Too late.”

“Huh?”

Prompto showed her his phone. He’d already placed an order for pizzas and they were due in an hour. She sighed deeply. _Damn this boy._ His features held no apology; a hint of excitement glinted in his rosy cheeks as they entered the locker room. She spoke firmly.

“Prom.”

He nodded, tucking his phone into his pocket. He wasn’t even supposed to have it during training. Rena dreaded the glare the marshal would have given if it had dared to ring in his presence. She tugged her rucksack from their locker and threw it over her shoulder.

“I stink. I need to shower,” she began. The moment his brows gathered a fraction, her words flew before she could stop them. “So, I’ll be there after-.”

“You could just shower at mine again,” he chirped, a little too fast and louder than she’d have liked. He must’ve heard his own voice bouncing back to him as the colour of his cheeks deepened. Rena’s expression was unreadable, as usual. She was grateful for it. The dozen recruits in the room turned to them, wearing raised eyebrows and smirks.

“I mean, you don’t have to! You-you could just- I mean! I’m sorry!” he stammered, the tips of his ears burning pink under damp hair.

“Let’s go,” she nodded, throwing him his bag and hurrying out. He froze under the knowing grins of other recruits before racing after her.

* * *

 

Prompto jumped at the bell, throwing himself from the couch and hauling the door open before he’d even found his wallet. A large man stepped in, eyes scanning the room before he dropped onto the couch with a thud. Another landed there with him. The third was more reserved, standing poised before being given the signalled invitation to sit.

“Good timing guys, food should be here any minute,” the blond chirped, perching on the coffee table. “Ready for another round?”

“Are you?” Noctis asked, a rare and keen smile playing across his pale lips.

His phone was already out, loading the welcome screen of a game. The light set his face in blue; raven hair tinted, and skin frosted. Ignis rolled his eyes before settling on a wad of paperwork. Gladiolus huffed before pulling out his phone, warm skin tone contrasted by the artificial blue.

The bathroom door clicked. She stepped out, wiping the damp skin of her nape. Rena froze. Eight eyes locked on her as she fixed at Prompto, an edge creeping into her still façade.

“Good evening,” Ignis was the first to break the silence with his trademark low, lilting voice. Gladio had cocked an eyebrow and Noctis had raised both at a blushing Prompto.

“Hey,” she breathed. Forcing the air back into her voice, she returned with her deep, smooth tone. “You alright?”

“Occupied, but otherwise excellent,” Ignis gave a brief smile before returning to his admin. She nodded, her fix on Prompto turning into a glare. He fumbled for a response.

“I- I mean, you said you weren’t hungry,” he began, forcing himself to speak slowly. “So, I figured I’d get the guys over. You don’t mind, right?”

“Prom, it’s your apartment,” she reminded, already on her way to the fridge. She placed a few beers on the coffee table before taking one and sitting on the floor, keeping her distance from the rest.

“Oh, yeah.”

“What?” Gladiolus began, an eyebrow still cocked and a mocking tone in his voice. He glanced at the label on the beer before twisting off the cap and taking his first sip. Weak alcohol laced his throat, enough to have negligible effect on a man of his size. “She here that often?”

Prompto flushed a deep pink, throwing his widened blue eyes into contrast. A deep, rich chuckle left a stubbled throat before it was doused in cold beer. The blond buried himself back into the game, the cool blue haze foreign on hot cheeks.

“If you keep trying, one of these days you might just turn into a damned beetroot, you know that?” Rena sighed. Prompto sank into his shoulders, trying to suppress a grin. She shook her head and met the bottle for a long, slow drink. Gladiolus huffed a laugh.

“How long before you two make it official?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered. The words shot from her mouth instantaneously, in a lazy, tired tone. He bristled at her language.

“I’m with her on this one,” Noctis piped up, drawn from his game by the profanity and his Shield’s increasing playfulness. Mischief was coursing through Gladiolus, his knee bobbing in excitement as he considered just how far he could push. “Gross.”

“What? They’re always together. Woulda thought you’d be more interested,” Gladio teased, ruffling Noctis’ hair. “You’re the one that put him in training, now he’s busy with her. When’s the last time you saw him alone?”

The Prince’s attention left his phone. He peered at the freckled blond, thought welling in storm-blue eyes.

“Oh yeah, how’s that going?” He asked coldly, almost mechanic. It was as if he was expecting the reply to be bad.

Prompto flustered and dropped his phone. He plucked it from the floor before choking on his answer.

“Well, I mean- _good_ I guess…”

The doorbell rang. Prompto jumped to answer, still babbling an excuse as he fumbled for his wallet. He turned, knuckles white on the boxes, crushing the cardboard and stumbled through his explanation. The inanities only stopped when he stuffed a limp slice of pizza into his mouth.

“How bad is it?” Noct questioned, tucking his phone into his pocket and reaching for a slice. His brows were beginning to knit together as he watched Prompto.

“Ohmmf, vis?” the blond asked through a full mouth, pointing to the remains of his first slice as he swallowed. “It’s really good, man. You gotta-.”

“Seriously, Prompto?” The prince deadpanned. He searched his friend’s features before tilting his head. “No way it’s _that_ bad.”

“If Cor has anything to do with it, it _will_ be,” Gladiolus muttered between a deep swig of beer and a bite that took out half a slice.

All eyes were on him. He could feel his shoulders gathering around his ears. His focus ran around the room, darting from one sharp gaze to the next. His stomach turned. Ignis’ eyebrows quirked a fraction when Prompto’s cheeks faded, leaving his freckles stark against pale skin. He choked out small squeaks and raked a shaking hand through his hair, tugging at the blond locks. They were all fixed on him with keen, piercing stares.

“I-I uh… w-well I… we…”

Except her. The hint of a frown shifted onto her expression.

“Rena got put in the circle!” He blurted, his eyes instantly widening at her. Her face barely changed as the conversation continued around them.

“Yeah… that’s kind of how they train you guys,” Noctis said flatly.

Gladio huffed a laugh.

“Nah, he means _that_ circle.” He shook his head and drained the beer. A smirk toyed with the corners of his mouth as he locked on Rena. He shrugged and cocked his head. “Can’t take the heat, they throw you on the fire.”

He sat back and chewed carefully, waiting for something in her face to twitch, some reaction to prove he’d found a weakness and managed to poke it. She was motionless, as stone-faced as ever. Even when she took another draft, she watched him with eyes as green and hard as the bottle.

“Hmm.”

Her focus snapped to Ignis. His pen was poised, but unmoving.

“ _Hmm?_ ” She mimicked, lilting the hum into a question.

He corrected his glasses and blinked up from his paperwork, looking at her expectantly. She sat against the wall, elbows rested on her knees, loosely holding the half empty bottle. For someone so at ease, something pulled her brows together.

“What d’you mean ‘hmm’?”

Ignis waved the suggestion away, shook his head and refocused on the report in front of him.

“Nothing.”

“Oh no, you don’t. You don’t _‘hmm’_ about just nothing,” she pressed, taking another drink.

He sighed deeply and continued to write as the others ate.

“Word is the marshal has selected his early candidates, and that _you_ are one of them.”

Gladiolus choked on his second beer. He snarled at the burn in his nose and glared at Ignis.

“What?” he demanded flatly.

“Yeah, _what?_ ” She stared at Ignis. Prompto was gaping at him, half a slice of pizza in his mouth. Noctis had raised an eyebrow and watched both of them with renewed interest, leaving their phones unattended once again.

They mirrored each other from opposite sides of the small room. Control and composure, neither giving anything away, pairs of green eyes fused on each other. A quirk appeared at the corner of his pale lips.

“It seems you’ve impressed him, and he would have you join the Guard,” Ignis stated. Her mouth opened a fraction as her frown deepened. He smiled at the rare break in her expression. “The forms passed over my desk yesterday.”

“No fucking way.”

He gave a single nod. Prompto withdrew the unbitten slice of pizza from his mouth and turned to her, a huge grin spreading across his face.

“Hold on,” Noctis began. A confused look washed over him as he investigated. “Why did _you_ get it?”

Ignis repositioned his glasses and sighed into his explanation.

“The Council were aware of the nature of our initial meeting. They saw fit to have me sign and confirm that Rena did _not_ intend to harm you,” he listed off, watching the understanding creep into Noctis’ face.

“Oh,” he said quietly, before frowning again. “Why wasn’t I invited? I mean, it was _me_ she tried to- well, I guess _didn’t_ try to-.”

“The meeting began at seven-thirty.”

Noctis paused, then grunted an approval. He continued to eat with Prompto as Rena stared at the coffee table.

“Congratulations are in order.” Ignis smiled gently. “You have mine.”

Having regained her stony exterior, she looked across at him.

“I don’t- I haven’t done anything... _worth_ that.”

He settled back in his chair and set the pen down in his lap. The silence of the room was smoothed by his even tone, weighty with certainty. Seafoam eyes locked with a darker hue.

“Cor, the Marshal of the Crownsguard, the _Immortal_ , has seen fit to bring you amongst his ranks. He would not do so with someone he considers unready. Seems you’ve made quite the impression.”

The words wrapped around her throat, choking her into silence with the softest touch. Her gaze lingered on Ignis before drifting to Prompto. His smile was eager, excited even, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Before she could launch an argument, he spoke, his usually musical voice lower, softer. Sure.

“You should do it,” he barely whispered.

She looked at each of them in turn. Ignis had begun writing again, but when his eyes flicked up and saw her, a gentle crease appeared at their corners. Noctis shrugged and nodded with a crooked smile. When she turned her focus to Gladiolus, he was about to take another sip. He shrugged and shook his head with heavy shoulders before kissing the bottle. Her eyes dropped to the floor again.

“Take it I don’t get a choice?”

The scratching of the pen ceased, drawing his eyes over the top of the report. There she was, walls back in place after having them shaken. Patient eyes that gave no hint of their curiosity watched him with intent. Gravel interrupted thickly.

“Oh, they’ll give you a choice alright,” Gladiolus stated, fixing her with a cold stare. She took a deep breath and locked on him.

“Move up or leave.”

“Smart girl,” he feigned surprise, drinking with a smirk. He cocked an eyebrow at her, amber eyes aflame and sparking with mischief. Rena’s expression didn’t change.

“Looks like I need to take a trip home.”

“We’d be happy to escort you.”

Their heads whipped to Ignis. He capped his pen and began another explanation with a sigh.

“An excursion to Cleigne and back would prove difficult to complete in one day. The region is renowned for the river Wennath, and I understand the trout fishing to be exquisite at this time of year. We could stay the night in Lestallum before returning. I believe the fresh air and change of scenery would do some of us a world of good.”

He turned to Noctis with an impassive expression. Despite looking directly at his advisor, the Prince was standing somewhere at sunset, up to his knees in cool water as he watched the world slow down. A brief cough from Ignis brought him back to Prompto’s cramped, messy apartment.

“Let’s do it.”

“Excellent. I shall inform the Marshal. We leave tomorrow morning,” Ignis flashed the hint of a smirk. “We convene here at seven, sharpish. Does that suit everyone?”

He looked at Gladiolus more than anyone else. The Shield finished his beer and huffed.

“You want Sleeping Beauty here up _that_ early?” he tilted his bottle towards Noctis as Ignis blinked in confirmation. Gladiolus turned to the raven-haired boy, who’d drifted into his thoughts again. “Bedtime, Princess.”

He stood and swept his hair back with a calloused hand, wedging a cap over it. Ignis rose silently and began to herd them out.

The alley was just as cramped as the apartment. Gaudy neon flashed at the far end, illuminating the rough, wooden planks of boarded windows. A few drunken shouts howled through the quiet. Gladio bristled, glaring at the staggering silhouettes with dark eyes. She watched, ears pulling at every locking door, every tapping footstep. After a few moments, she caught on a smooth voice.

“Can we offer you a lift?”

She turned to him and shouldered her rucksack. Her gaze caught on the others as they folded into the car. Noctis quickly busied himself with a game, pale face reflecting the artificial blue of his phone. The Shield’s chest rose and fell with a heavy sigh before he perched his arm on the open window. Firm fingers drummed on the black paint. Her bun gently shook with her head, catching the vivid and changing lights from the bar.

“Nah, I already owe you too many,” she sighed. The depth of her voice was soft, but firm enough to be sincere. “And one more to come… You really don’t have to-.”

“It’s the least we could do.”

“It’s really not,” she folded her arms, skin pale and luminous in the meagre lighting that threw unreadable features into darkness. The evening was cool enough to make Ignis grateful for his choice of jacket. “Home’s… not close.”

“Then it would only be right to escort you there.”

The dark lines of her brows drew upwards a fraction, eyes widening ever so slightly. Even the dull gallop of Gladio’s impatient fingertips halted.

“Come again?” she asked, tilting her head. “Sorry, Ignis, it’s been a long day and I-.”

“It’d be my pleasure to take you home,” he affirmed, blinking softly at her.

A wryness twisted the corner of her mouth upwards. Silence fell like fog, only interrupted by a brief, hard exhale from Gladio. She said her next words carefully, quietly encouraging him to reassess his.

“Would you now?”

Ignis took a single deep breath and with it, his face was washed of its fondness. He turned to reprimand Gladio, only to be met with a waved hand and a grunt.

“You walked into that.”

He straightened his glasses and hummed with chagrin. His fine features were heavy; sharp eyes dulled by long hours and waning caffeine, and narrowed in disappointment.

“Sorry,” she shook her head. Her tone was genuine enough but still undermined by an emotionless expression. “Long day… Yours was probably longer, though.”

“Indeed,” he confirmed, letting his shoulders hang momentarily. He drew himself back into flawless posture and fixed on her again. “Are you sure you don’t need a lift? The barracks are close enough to the Citadel, we’ll be passing-.”

“I’m sure,” she nodded. Rena took a deep breath and fiddled with the bindings on her hands before locking eyes with him again. “Less time I spend there, the better… Could get my own place now, I guess.”

He was exhausted, worn thin enough that warmth crept into his features.

“In that case, goodnight. Seven o’clock sharp. Don’t forget.”

“See you then,” she nodded. Halfway down the alley, her ears twitched at the sound of the car door opening. She stopped and turned. “Hey, Ignis?”

He’d stooped to get into the car. Once returned to his full height, he raised his brows at her.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

* * *

 

The trees filtered aurous sunlight like lace, casting dappled shadows on the undergrowth. She breathed in the familiar air. It had been clear and cool when she’d left in the spring; mornings heady with bitter, wild garlic and plum blossoms as sweet as the fresh breezes.

Months had passed. Summer had burned through the forests. The black skirts of Ravatogh had been let down, claiming a few more acres in the smoke and fires of July. Across the Wennath and in the mountains that came before the rift that pared Cleigne from Duscae, the woods were intact, thick and old. They’d basked in countless brass sunsets since she’d left. The final fires of a hundred days had failed to dry the ground completely, leaving the perfume of fresh earth hanging above the ground.

There was an overwhelming sense of having missed something. The revelry of summer nights when the sun barely set; pine trees that were suddenly fuller and lush; fruit ripening where there had been flower buds.

The road that led home was muddy, spattering brown against the smooth black of the car. Soon they'd run out of road altogether. The dirt track had become embedded in the mountainside. Roots braced the verges like desperate, knotted fingers, clinging to the damp earth. The forest was swallowing them.

Ignis frowned at the narrowing road.

“Precisely how much farther is it?”

Rena glanced at him from the passenger seat, ears twitching enough to catch the sound of leather tightening grip on the steering wheel.

“Five minutes’ walk. You could probably leave it just… _there_ ,” she pointed to a break in the trees. Ignis nodded once and winced lightly at taking the Regalia off-road. _If His Majesty ever found out…_

Heavy boots hit the soft, damp needles that littered the dark earth. Rolling her shoulders into her rucksack, she gave a quick glance to the close horizons. Visibility was limited, around thirty feet before the view was blocked by a tree or moss-strewn boulder. The dappled light shifted through the branches, landing in rare and bright puddles on the ground. Three of them watched her. Her ears twitched and pulled to every sound that echoed from the woods. Clues of life they couldn’t see. She nodded to them, before beginning to pad along the track.

“Prom!”

“Just a minute!” The blond had become enraptured, eyes wide behind his viewfinder as he snapped endless photographs. The loose pinecones, scattered by the car, were his subject for a few seconds, before he shifted to the fiery ruffles of a mushroom that spilled from a cracked tree stump. His mouth hung open, lightly curled into an eager smile.

“Fall behind, get left behind,” the Shield’s tired grumble almost sounded hopeful. “Fine by me.”

“Aw, pshh,” Prompto dismissed. He homed in on the varying lichens that crusted a rock in muted splashes of green. He muttered on as his focus raced to document the depth of the woods. “Car’s right here, I’d be a-okay.”

“You know there’s some pretty big bugs around here, right?” Rena called. She turned and walked backwards, watching as Prompto’s face was revealed from behind his camera. He gulped.

“O-on second thought, no thanks!” He darted back to the group. Rena shook her head and turned, leading them through familiar surroundings.

The path narrowed until it was barely wide enough for two abreast. Branches reached out to them with hard, wrought limbs, softened by the full foliage of late summer. Gladio’s hands grew restless as caution drew up the back of his neck as a steely finger.

A twig snapped to their left. Rena shifted a glance to it, before carrying on through the undergrowth. The others froze. Something whipped past them. Another pelted ahead, barely visible through the messy backdrop of the forest.

She noticed the building silence behind her and spoke without turning.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The boughs pressed down, squeezing them until even Prompto was forced to stoop. Turning sideways, Rena shouldered through the final gap and into a muted light of a break in the trees.

Towering spruce and larch supported a pale, clouded sky. Lush ferns, rustled by a gentle breeze in the wider spaces, grew tall enough to tickle their hands. The air was looser here, interrupted only by a birds warbling and the quiet song of a stream. Their path disappeared. Trekking through woods so familiar, they were etched into her muscles, Rena led on through the quiet.

In the clear mountain air, scent reigned supreme. The acrid aroma of resin perfumed the trees. Breathing that air was like drinking ice-cold whiskey; soft, smooth and subtle but always carrying the threat of burning. These woods hadn’t seen fire for hundreds of years, but the soil was still black with the carnage of the last. The death of one forest and its fire had sparked the growth of the next.

The ferns to their right were disturbed, ruffled by a racing culprit.

“Okay, _seriously_ …” Prompto began, clutching his camera close to his chest.

She turned to see him over her shoulder and nodded gently. Whistling two notes, she swayed restlessly on the spot. Noctis flinched when something ran past him. It stopped by her side and stayed still long enough to be seen clearly.

It was a dog. Long limbed and covered in mottled fur that darkened to black at the ears and muzzle. It nuzzled frantically at her hand, letting out whines and busy grumbles.

“This little guy,” she began, massaging the dogs ear as he sat down beside her, his leg thumping at the sensation, “is Ochre.”

“Little?!”

The dog’s head was level with her thigh as he panted contentedly, watching the boys with a friendly expression, pink tongue lolling from his dark muzzle. Prompto toed closer, moving his camera slowly despite biting his lip in anticipation. When he came within ten feet of Rena, the dog’s mouth clamped shut as he looked up at her. She waved her hand in Prompto’s direction.

The blond gasped and froze as Ochre bounded towards him, stopping to watch him with chestnut eyes.

“H-hey big guy,” Prompto’s voice rose an octave as he reached out a careful hand, glancing at Rena. She nodded.

His fingertips came within an inch of the dogs head when he moved. The blond jumped back as if he’d been burned. Ochre ducked into a deep play bow, letting out an excited grumble. His tail wagged slowly in a loose arc over his back, large paws pushing at the pine needles as Prompto crouched and reached out his hand again. Ochre licked and shoved at it with his paw, lazily batting at his palm.

Distracted by the first, they’d failed to notice the second. A deep russet, she’d padded in silently, arriving at Rena’s side with little more than a nudge to her hand. Ignis raised an eyebrow at her as Noctis joined Prompto to play with the dog.

“Seyna,” she nodded. At the mention of her name, the dog immediately looked to Rena for a further instruction.

Slightly smaller than the first, but still imposing enough, Seyna leant against Rena’s leg silently, watching the newcomers with a caution Ochre lacked.

Noctis let out a rare beat of laughter that immediately gathered Ignis and Gladio’s attention. Pinned down by paws on his shoulders and the bulk of the dog sitting on his stomach, Prompto was a giggling mess as Ochre snuffled at his hair and face.

“He’s…so…heavy,” he croaked, laughing at the tilting of the dogs head. Rena shook hers and whistled softly again.

“C’mere.”

Giving the blond one last lick across his forehead, Ochre bounded to her side and shoved playfully at the other dog. She responded with a glare that made Rena snort, as Ochre backed away.

“Ahh,” Prompto sighed, returning to his feet and shaking the pine needles from his clothes. He put the camera to his eye and tracked the dog as he loped circles around them. “You never said you had a dog.”

Rena nodded and took a breath, leading them through loosening trees. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

“ _Dogs,_ plural,” he grinned, catching up with her as he spotted the second. He turned and walked backwards, gesturing to the dogs with his thumbs. “Hey Noct, remind you of anyone?”

“They’re a lot bigger than Umbra, that’s for sure. Pryna… Only ever met her once, when she was little.”

“She was _tiny_ when I met her. Seriously tiny. I called her Tiny.” He smiled fondly. “Wonder how big she is now…”

Gladio’s eyebrow lifted at the blond. He watched the dogs carefully as they loosely herded the group, loping in circles. Rena repeatedly sent them away with a casual wave of her hand. _What else hasn’t she told us?_

“Just you and your parents up here?”

She turned her head towards the Shield’s deep tone, fingers playing through the dogs coats whenever they passed her. “Nah. Three sisters. Haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Huh,” he nodded, bringing up the rear of the group. “When’d you leave?”

“March.”

She led them from the ferns to a faint trail of soft earth and pine needles. The stream grew louder. Up ahead, the path widened again as the trees parted around a cabin. The wood was deep brown, lying horizontal on the lower level. The small upper storey was clad in darker, vertical panels leading to a slate roof softened by clumps of moss and persistent dustings of needles. As they drew closer, hints of spider-silk were swept from the nooks of the structure to catch the sun by a soft breeze.

A twig snapped under Gladio’s foot.

Deep, rough barks stopped them in their tracks. A pale cream dog stood guard on the porch, brought to his feet by the intrusion. Each bellowing threat gave a glimpse of large, glistening teeth in the black muzzle.

“Enough,” she said, locking eyes with the dog until he ceased his barking and retreated to lie outside the window.

“Uhm…” Prompto began, finger held up to tap her on the shoulder. She around to them and spoke, retying the bindings on her hands.

“Erro.” The dog growled deeply behind her. Rena shook her head and continued. “One hell of a guard dog-.”

“What the hell is that damned dog barking at now?! Who’s there?!”

She raised her voice carefully. “It’s me.”

“Renata?! What in Ifrit’s name do you think you’re-?!”

Her expression gave nothing away. “Yeah. I, uh-.”

The door of the house was wrenched open by a small, stout woman, fair hair pulled back into a tight bun and pale eyes fixing fiercely on the back of Rena’s head. She spotted the others quickly. Her glacial stare made the air grow cold around them.

“You brought company.”

Rena turned around silently and looked at the woman. “I did.”

The older woman’s face lost none of its edge as Rena held her ground on soft earth and needles. Her dogs stood beside her, heads low and tails motionless. Folding her arms, she stepped from the house but didn’t leave the porch. Cool eyes didn’t move from the younger’s as she lit a cigarette and took the first, sour inhale. The smoke poured thickly from her mouth as she spoke again.

“Well? Aren’t you going to invite them in and show them proper Cleigne hospitality?”

Rena carefully opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted.

“Good afternoon. Mrs Lauritas, I presume?”

“I am,” she said flatly, taking another draw of her cigarette before puffing her next words in a sweetened tone. “Who might you be?”

Ignis passed a stock-still Prompto and stood a few feet away from Rena, straightening his jacket as he did so. He inhaled and was about to answer when he saw Rena clench her jaw.

“We work alongside your daugh-.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, young man, but you don’t look like hunters.” She cast her eyes over the rest of the group. Prompto was staring a hole in the ground, fingers pulling at his gloves.

“We-.”

“We just came to give her a ride. Be outta your way as soon as she’s ready to go,” Gladio glanced at his watch.

Her mother’s expression honeyed at the young men.

“Oh no, stay for supper, by all means. Can’t be sending you strapping young things back out there on empty stomachs, now can we?”

“Are you certain? We don’t mean to impose…”

By her last word, her focus was back on Rena. The ash she flicked from her cigarette landed in front of a pair of scuffed brown boots and singed into the dry needles. Rena lifted her gaze from the porch steps to meet her mother’s eyes. Creased at the corners from her smile, they still held a pointed coolness. It was disrupted when footsteps sounded from within the house.

A second woman appeared at beside her on the porch. She was plumper than the first, and the same height. Dark brown hair and darker eyes were the framing features of a soft, round face.

“Hey Mollie.”

“Well, look at you, stranger,” she grinned. “How’d the trip go?”

Rena tilted her head. “Not to plan.”

Her sister smiled each of the group in turn. Prompto even flashed a nervous one in return. “Figures. You coming inside?”

“Nah, gonna go get dinner.”

Rena turned and walked away from the house, the dogs close at her heels. The boys nodded to her mother and sister, before following. She was headed for a small shed, tightening the bindings on her hands until they were secure again.

“So… which way’s the river?” Noctis asked. Ignis gave him a disciplinary frown before turning to her.

“Anything we can do?”

She paused with her hand on bolt of the door. Idly rubbing Ochre’s ear, she inhaled and shook her head.

“Keep yourselves entertained for a few hours? I’m need to go get something,” she crouched to tighten her laces. “There’s a pond that way, or the stream hits the river about a mile away, if you follow it from there,” she nodded towards the line of moss covered stones that rumbled quietly with the water running underneath them.

Noctis followed her gaze and turned to Gladio with a keen expression. The Shield, one hand coursing through his hair, tugged the snapback back down on his head and gave his friend a single pat on the back.

She stood back up to her full height and fastened the leather utility belt around her waist as three of them walked away. Ochre followed them a short distance before returning, tail high and wagging slowly when he stood still.

“Prompto! You coming?”

“Nah! I’ll give her a hand!” he shouted back, waving briefly as Rena stepped inside the shed.

“You’ll wanna give her more than your-.”

“Gladio! That’s quite enough.”

Blushing a deep red, Prompto gaped around a response as they waved briefly and headed for the river. When she stepped back out and shut the squeaking door behind her, the blond flashed her a quick smile. She shook her head at the trio walking away and turned to face eager blue eyes.

“You sure about this?”

“Oh, yeah! Course I am,” he ran a restless hand through his hair. “I mean- can’t be worse than that assault course they made us do, right?”

She watched him for another moment, completely still as the dogs picked up speed around her, noses already huffing against the ground as they searched for scents. The rifle strap was heavy and rough against her shoulder, but it was a familiar weight.

“Alright.”

* * *

 

The sun bathed the mountains behind them. Deep amber light was combed by the trees, illuminating the dust and insects of the summer evening. After the first gunshot had made them nervous, but with no screams to follow, they’d assumed that Prompto was either alive and well, or she’d killed him.

“Got one?”

“Nearly,” Noct rasped, letting the line out as the fish fought.

“Firearms might suit him, you know,” a smooth tone mused. Ignis, trousers rolled up to his calves, was standing in ankle deep water and collecting dark green stalks in his hand. “If he finds one that fits him, it could be enough to convince the marshal.”

“He’d still have to _prove_ he can use it. If he can’t do that, Cor’ll kick him out,” Gladio turned to Ignis with a cocky expression as he spun the point of her knife against the boulder they’d settled on.

Ignis stood up to his full height and pressed his lips together. “He’s trying, Gladio.”

Waving a dismissive hand with a growl, the Shield cast his eyes back to the opposite riverbank. It sloped upwards, strewn with lush trees, some thick with apples. The landscape was only interrupted by the road, slipping along the hillside light a great black snake through the trees. The glow of the sinking sun married another; Ravatogh.

Even from miles away, the volcano’s presence was written in the sky. Smoke rose thickly from it, trailing off into a hundred capillaries as if it sought the heavens themselves.

“Got it!”

Noctis reeled the line tight and held out his hand to the dangling, still fighting, fish. It was the length of his forearm and a murky green, almost brown. The glistening sides of the fish were spotted and flinched powerfully as the he took the hook out of its mouth.

“Nice,” Gladio nodded, spinning the knife against the rock again as he slowly worked to blunt the clip point.

“Not gonna lie, Specs, when you said the fishing was good, I didn’t believe you.”

“Yes, those first few hours did test your faith.”

“… Sorry,” he frowned gently. Ignis waved a forgiving hand and returned to picking plants from the cool, shallow water. “Hey, hold on a second. What’s that?”

Ignis continued while he foraged. “Freshwater samphire. Milder than its coastal cousin, it’s more palatable raw. It’s late in the season, but still good.”

He stood up and offered Noctis a stalk, only for him to flinch away with a sound of disgust.

“What’s it supposed to taste like?” Gladio asked, taking the vegetable between two fingers when Ignis offered it. He eyed it carefully.

“Something along the lines of sugar snap peas, so, sweet but still… _planty._ ”

With a shrug, he took a crunching bite and chewed. After swallowing, he offered his tasting notes. “Yeah, you’re pretty on target with that one.”

“Mmh,” Ignis nodded, passing Gladio another few stalks as he chewed on his own and began to search out the next patch of lush green lurking under the clear water. He paused as he stood in deeper water and sighed in relief. “Isn’t this soothing?”

The others each raised an eyebrow, then turned to look at each other.

“What d’you mean, Iggy?”

“Just,” he began, taking another deep breath as the evening sun warmed his face. “We’re miles from home, and though still bound by duty, we’re more free than we’ve ever been.”

Ignis turned around to see the sceptical looks he was being offered. He shook his head and scoffed.

“Look around you! We’re… _nestled_ between mountains, and this river,” he smiled gently, waving his foot through the water. “courses all the way from the Vesperpool, to the sea. It hits these rocks and sings and the water dances and just _look_ at how clear it is! Have you _ever-_?”

“Gods, he sounds like you.”

“I know.”

Ignis huffed and tilted his head at them. The green of his eyes reflected the forest behind them and deepened in its hue. He shook his head, and for all his lingual subtleties, he struggled to find words. The sun glinted on the water, turning it into a varnish on the smooth rocks on the riverbed. Rough, shifting circles reflected up and shimmered over Ignis in transient patches, as if he were a painting in restoration.

“We are a hundred miles from home, and no one here knows who we are. There are _no_ deadlines, no responsibilities-.”

“When was his last can?” Noct asked from the side of his mouth, his eyes wide at his advisor’s moment in the sun.

“Couple hours back.”

“-no clouds hanging over our heads- except that one!” he pointed to a lone shred as it sailed across the deepening blue sky of early evening. “There is nothing we know here, and… it’s incredible.”

His restless gaze, which had been taking in as much of the landscape as possible in an attempt to commit it to memory, landed on his oldest friends. Sapphire eyes were wide, and pale lips pressed small as a thick brow cocked at him from another face.

“What I’m trying to say is-.”

“It’s nice to escape.” The words left Gladio with the warmth of understanding. Ignis nodded a little.

“Yes,” he breathed, filling his lungs again with the cool, fresh air that hung over the water in a soft breeze, flowing as a shadow of its stronger partner. “Yes, it is.”

Gladio gave a nod and wiped the stone dust from the blade on his thigh. He took a moment to breathe the free air, listening to the shifting melody of the river, the soft rustle of summer leaves and the faint cricket-songs and birds chorusing for the coming night. He closed his eyes and let it the sun cast its warm glow over his skin.

“Ah! Did… not expect you to still be alive,” Noctis flinched beside him, clutching the fish as it twitched in his grasp.

“Hey Blondie,” Gladio sighed, his eyes still shut.

“No, I was talking about the-.”

“Hey guys!”

“AGH!” Noctis jumped to his feet, throwing the fish back into the river in panic. Prompto threw his head back and laughed, clutching his stomach with one arm while he pointed at Noct with the other. The Prince frowned and shook his head before a smile quirked at his lips.

* * *

 

She set the birds down on a small table, sweat on hot muscles cooling in the dim relief of the shed. Her deep exhale plumed in the cold shelter. The air was soft and quiet, laced with the scents of drying herbs and fresh blood. A warbling whine came from outside the door as claws scratched hard enough at the wood to make it move.

“Shh, just wait.”

Wiping her forehead with the back of her wrist, she moved the bucket out from under the table with her boot and rested her elbows on her thighs. Rena turned the small pocket knife in her hands. When she unfolded the sheepsfoot blade, she patted it against her palm a few times. _It’ll do._

Taking one of the birds over her lap, she slit the throat and held it to bleed over the bucket. She looked around the shed with finality. There were marks etched into one of the wooden panels, tracking her height over the years. She smiled weakly at the memory of accidentally cutting her hair making one of those marks.

As the blood flow waned to a drip, she put the bird back on the table, and started on the next. The herbs she’d picked in early spring were drying in bunches from the narrow rafters. Each type spun gently with the breeze, all part of an aromatic mobile that danced with quiet rustles and earthy scents. What little golden light filtered in set the flecks in the air on fire and made them glitter in a narrow curtain that passed silently through the shed. Under the centre rafter, a dark hook hung heavy and solemn, cleaned of the stains of larger quarry.

At the other side of the shed, a small pile of straw was gathered on the floor, pressed flat and soft from months ago, alongside a dusty, rolled blanket. Its warm, drowsy scent carried across the draughty space.

The door pushed again, before the metal ring of a handle spun and light flooded the quiet space. She set the second bird back on the table and cut the third before looking over her shoulder. A black baseball cap ducked inside, not followed by its body.

“Need a hand?” he asked gruffly.

“You’re a guest, go put your feet up,” she said, voice low and quiet.

The door shut. Heavy feet took careful steps into her space. Her eyes flicked up from the bird in her lap as she traded it for the fourth, cutting the throat faster with the blunted knife.

“Haven’t you got a prince to babysit?”

“Iggy’s got him.” He came further into the shed and ducked under the rafters to lean against the wall. She set the bird back and took the fifth. “Prompto’s telling them about your little trip.”

Her gaze left the speckled feathers in her lap and flicked up to him. In the dim light, he was formidable. Jaw clenched, arms folded and every breath as powerful as the last, the narrow light from the crack in the door reached his neck before he outgrew it. He watched impassively, threat still burning in the back of his eyes.

“He shot three.”

His jaw loosened with a bitter thought; _bullshit._

Light flashed in the room as he brought out her knife and turned it in his hand, the steel catching the last remnants of the day. Rena momentarily looked at the knife before cutting the seventh and eighth necks and leaving the birds on her thighs as they bled into the bucket below. The heavy scent of blood was rising. With every moment that passed, it smoothly coated the inside of her nose and cast the scent of herbs away.

When she reached for the first bird again, the hunting knife clattered onto the table with a silent, tormenting dare. Rena glanced at it, then picked the bird up by its feet and brought it between her knees, leaning forward as she began to strip the feathers away.

“What do you want?”

He shrugged and smirked. “Bored.”

Gladio raised an eyebrow when she looked at him. Her eyes flicked to the knife before she drew them back to the bird in her hand, gathering the plucked feathers in her palm. _Don’t rise to him._ She jumped when the door to the shed was thrown open.

“What’s for supper?”

“Is it fish?”

Rena shook her head and held up the bird she was working on. The young girls took careful steps on the dusty stone floor, littered with the debris of the forest outside, as they approached. Round cheeks held bold smiles. Rena carried on, eyes flicking to her sisters, Gladiolus, and then back to her work.

“What’s that one again?” the taller of the two asked, her blonde hair pulled back into a long ponytail by a pale blue ribbon that matched her eyes. Rena opened her mouth to answer before the smaller shouted through the quiet.

“Eugh! It’s _those_ ones! They’re disgusting!” The child pulled a sour face as she twisted to get the longer word out clearly. Brown eyes, but pale blonde hair in a short plait, she was the younger of the two.

“Why do you never get the ones we like?”

Rena stayed silent, putting the two bled birds from her lap on the table before tying the plucked to a rafter. She spoke quietly and with no real tone. “Because they’re not in season. The ones you like migrate.”

The two young girls stamped their feet and crossed their arms, watching her with petulant frowns. She sat down on the stool again and pulled another bird into her lap, plucking the bloodied feathers away from the skin. The girls decided to try again.

“Did you bring us any presents?”

The younger tugged on the older one’s arm. “Yeah, from your trip?”

Rena shook her head briefly. “Wasn’t that kind of trip.”

The girls huffed and left, only for one of them to stop in the doorway and growl out her words tearfully.

“You’re the worst big sister ever!”

As the door slammed hard enough to creak back open again, Rena lifted an eyebrow momentarily and puffed her cheeks with a tired breath.

Gladio had watched in silence, at first reminded of Iris and then quickly having his mind changed.

A dark muzzle sniffed heavily at the door.

“Out.”

She gave the command quietly enough for the dog to question it as he put a tentative paw into the shed. She turned to him and locked eyes until he backed away. Gladio crossed the shed in two steps and closed the door quietly. At the sound of his returning footsteps, Rena mentally cursed and paused to look up at him.

“You really that bored?”

His eyes had lost the threat, but he still watched with apathy. Head tilted, he opened his mouth.

“Know how to pluck feathers?”

Nodding, he picked up a bird and began to gather a large handful. She knocked on the table to get his attention.

“Less. Little and often,” she said, holding her bird out to show him as she gathered feathers between her fingertips, tugged them out swiftly and gathered them in her palm. “Otherwise you tear the skin.”

The popping of feathers being pulled, like snapping threads, was the only sound in the shed after that.

Gladio left her to it once the floor was covered in the remnants of flight. Rena ducked from the structure, bloodied to her mid-forearms, with a wooden bowl of fresh offal and the bruised or shot meat from the birds. The dogs danced around her. They chattered constantly, even Seyna, as she walked a little way to a low, moss covered boulder and waited for them to sit. Once they did, they were rewarded with their meal.

A dark bird cawed softly from low in a nearby tree. Rena turned her head to it before slipping back into the shed and emerging with the rougher entrails, leaving them on the thin turf roof of the shed. The birds descended once she’d gone back inside, taking up the offering with vigour.

“They’re pests,” Gladio said, having left to check on the others. Rena spoke from inside the shed, her voice becoming clearer as she emerged with eight gutted and trimmed birds, hung in pairs on strings

“…and everything needs to eat.”

He folded his arms and cast his attention back to the livelier birds. They were sleek and black, larger than the crows that were periodically chased from the city parks. Barely flinching at Rena’s movements as she held the prepared fowl out of the Ochre’s reach, they ate between quiet coos and the occasional slow beat of wings to claim a prized morsel. One stopped and watched him with curious eyes. He stared back as it looked into him with timeless familiarity, before turning back to the meal.

* * *

 

“So, plan is to find an apartment and send it back home.”

Mollie sipped at a glass of water and watched with round brown eyes as her younger sister chopped carrots against her thumb with frightening pace. “Have you got enough for a deposit?”

Rena nodded and shook the pan that held sizzling cuts of meat that popped whenever the rare fat from the birds hit the iron.

The low ceiling of the kitchen pressed down on them, trapping them in the steamed scents of browning meat and herbs. A small window had been opened to let out some of the heat after it had fogged. The vegetables fell into the deep earthen dish as they were chopped.

“As long as I can keep the job, it should be alright.”

Mollie leaned forwards and watched as the dish slowly filled with the solid chunks of root vegetables and the pearlescent aromatics of onions. She opened her mouth slowly. Rena brought over the pan and began to push the meat into the dish. Her eyes fixed on her sister.

“Spit.”

“I, uhm,” she began, looking up from the small table. She still avoided her sister’s gaze. “We’re gonna… I’m pregnant.”

Rena’s eyebrows lifted as she poured water into the pan and put it back on the stove. While she waited for it to boil and lift the flavours from the pan, she turned around shook her head in fond disbelief. “Congratulations. When are you due?”

“February. He should be in his new job by then,” she nodded, small lips spreading into a smile as her thumb idly rubbed her belly.

“Wait a minute,” Rena said, already leaving the room. The taller sister returned shortly and with a small bag in hand. She put it on the table in front of Mollie, where it landed with a heavy thud. “There.”

“Rena, I can’t-.”

“You can. It’s not the deposit, it’s just a furniture fund _and_ you need it more than I do. More mouths to feed.”

Mollie’s eyes melted at her junior, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is way too much.”

“ _And_ it’s an early birthday present.”

Scoffing a laugh, she swept her thick, dark hair over her shoulder. It fell in a sleek curtain that shook with her head. “You’re not coming back then?”

“Depends,” she said quietly, pouring the hot water from the pan into the deeper dish. “ _If_ I get time-.”

A cool voice interrupted.

“What are you two talking about?”

* * *

 

The sun was falling over the opposing mountains, casting shadows that grew from the roots of the trees. She swivelled the axe in her hand and placed another log on the stump. She brought the axe down in a swing so practiced it was carved into her shoulders. The log split and fell either side of the small, wooden plinth. After collecting the pile she’d built up, and wiping the sweat from her brow, she carried it to the house and slipped inside.

Heat and close air immediately wrapped around her throat. Rena set the log basket down by the oven and threw a few onto the fire within.

“Anything we can do?” A smooth voice asked. Ignis, having recovered his glasses from the children for the third time in the last hour, was freed of his earlier looseness and craving a coffee.

“Nope, table’s set,” she reported, pulling out the casserole dish to check the steaming, thick stew within. “This needs five more, and I’ve already got the rice on the go. Sorry.”

His presence at her shoulder made her jump and curse.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Go pick a spot at the table, there probably won’t be enough chairs so I’d get one while you can.”

“Of course,” he sighed, turning to leave the kitchen. He made it to the door before turning around. “Is there anything we should know?”

Rena slowed as she pulled serving bowls from a cupboard.

“Table manners, etiquette? Anything particular to Cleigne?”

She shook her head and drained the rice. “Not in this house. Stretch or starve is about all you need to know.”

Ignis nodded and left, walking through the narrow hallway of the house. The other three, having returned from the Regalia, handed him a can of ebony and lingered in the hallway with him.

“Plan?”

“We eat. We leave for Lestallum, the hotel’s already booked. We’re home by midday tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Noctis nodded, shaking his dark hair from his eyes again.

They ducked into the living room, which was largely filled by a dining table and the chairs that had been plucked from every corner of the house to provide enough seats. A loud, rich laugh echoed from the table as Mollie grinned back at her father, skin warmed by the hearth.

“Honestly, she comes home and I still haven’t seen her,” he rasped, words falling into coughs at the end of his shallow breaths.

He was a tall man and defied his age with jet black hair and a youthful expression that mirrored the daughter sitting beside him. Mollie gave a hearty pat to his broad shoulders as the coughing fit passed.

“Hello boys! Please, take a seat.”

Nodding to the older man, the boys gathered around the table. Ignis was the first to speak, out of courtesy.

“We can’t tell you how grateful we are for you to provide a meal before we go, Mr-.”

“Call me Phil,” he said warmly. His deep brown eyes twinkled with mirth and a hint of pride as he spoke. “And don’t bother thanking me, I don’t do anything ‘round here anymore. Rena, though-.”

“What have I done now?” she asked softly, slipping into the room quietly with steaming bowls of rice in her hands. He gave her a broad smile.

“The usual,” Mollie tilted her head, turned her wedding ring on her finger. Despite having the same rounded features of their mother, Mollie had her father’s colouring; dark hair and smooth olive skin.

The small, blond woman approached the table brusquely and took a seat, surrounded on each side by the younger girls. Fair haired, pale eyed, they were the opposite of the man that laughed richly. Cool hues watched as Rena left the room as quietly as she entered it.

“She’s lost weight,” her mother observed, sipping at a glass of pale wine. “It’s good.”

Holding a dish so hot, heat itself was an element in the perfume of herbs and rich vegetables, Rena sidled back into the room, dodging through the cramped space to place it on the centre of the table. Mollie lifted the lid and released a plume of mouth-watering scent.

“Well, say what you want, dear. She’s still good with a gun,” Phil sighed.

Rena crouched at the hearth and stoked the fire, pressing a log onto the embers and waiting for it to catch. “I picked it up early.”

“Picked it up?! You stole my damn rifle!”

Rena shook her head gently and stood to her full height again. “You let me keep it.”

“And the car,” Mollie grinned fondly at her sister. Her round brown eyes flicked to the boys as she filled their plates. “She told you that one yet?”

They shook their heads. Raising her eyebrows at her paler sister, Mollie silently encouraged her.

“Long story short, I reversed into a catoblepas-.”

“But they live in the middle of a lake!” Prompto gaped. Rena nodded slowly.

“Yep... I’m gonna go fix the tap.”  She pointed her thumb over her shoulder and began to turn from the room.

“Don’t be rude, Renata. Have something to eat, you’re terrible for not eating.”

She stilled at her mother’s voice. The boys slowed in their eating as the younger girls wore mild disgust and picked around the meal, flicking vegetables and tender morsels of meat from the stew. Rena turned her head and spoke again.

“It’s leaking, I’m gonna go fix it.”

* * *

 

After she fixed the tap and cleaned the kitchen, Rena stepped out of the house to breathe.

“Hey,” she whispered as the dogs came closer, leaning against her legs and licking at her fingers. Holding her hands together, she listened. The soft shifting of the river was the canvas on which every other sound, every bird, every waving branch, every laugh and chatter from inside, was painted on. It was the base of everything.

Rena passed through the glittering dappled evening of the woods, partially blinded in a landscape she knew as well as herself. Heavy feet became lighter the further she got from the cabin, until she met the riverbank. The sun was low, only just peeking over Ravatogh as it sank in the evening.

“Go on.” She sent the dogs ahead with idle flicks of her wrist and quiet words.

The cool air that hung close to the river, covering it as a sheer cloak, was swept upwards to meet her face in soothing touches. The scents were sweet and subtle. Spotting a familiar boulder that sat in the river, she crossed to it and perched on the moss, knees curled to her chest and elbows resting on them. She watched the river flow away from her as she unbound her hands.

Rena dipped her fingertips into the soft, fresh water. Each moment that passed, a different river swept against her skin. The dying light filtered lazily through the current until it shone like whiskey in the sun. The dogs cast white splashes as they played in the water. Seyna was focused intently on a dark shape, her coat dripping as her ears perked forwards. The fish took off, and she chased it, large paws clumsy in the water.

Her lips pulled into a soft smile as she let out the quiet, two note, summoning whistle. Their heads whipped from the waters.

“C’mere.”

Loping gently through the river that came up to their chests, they scrambled at the base of the boulder. Seyna shook the water from her coat and leapt onto the rock, sitting heavy against Rena and licking her cheek.

“Thanks,” she said flatly, before patting on the rock, encouraging Ochre. He let out a frustrated whine and turned away before taking a running jump. When he landed on the rock, he stood still for a moment.

“No, _no_ , Ochre don’t-.”

He shook.

“Agh! Just- thanks,” she said, burying her fingers in his plush coat.

He flopped on his back and lifted his forelegs. Rena shook her head and ruffled the white patch on his chest. Beside her, Seyna grumbled and landed a heavy head on her lap. She yawned when Rena massaged the peak of her neck and settled with a low groan.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Rena sighed, running her gaze over the mountains that decorated her mind whenever she closed her eyes. The sound of the river, waterfowl booming quietly downstream and the scent of old but strong earth, apples ripening and resin heating sourly in the evening sun would never leave her.

“Time to go, they’re about to finish up.”

She flinched and turned quickly enough for the dogs to stand and raise their hackles. He crossed his arms and looked at them before she stepped into the river and walked towards the bank.

“You guys mind waiting half an hour?”

Gladio breathed in the evening air and shook his head once. He looked out over the landscape. Wild mountains, the glow of the distant volcano and a deep amber sunset that reflected perfectly in his eyes. “Nah. Prompto probably wants to get photos of this.”

“Fair enough,” she said, already making her way back to the house.

“You ready to go? Like, are you done?”

She shook her head gently as she began to climb the slope back to the house, replying just as she was shaded by the first trees. Light danced across her shoulders as the dogs followed her into the shadows.

“You have no fuckin’ idea.”

When she emerged from the house for the last time, she slung her rucksack over her shoulder and passed Erro with a nod. Her own dogs licked the heat of dishwater away from her scarred knuckles. Her father, supported by Mollie under his arm, stood unsteady on the porch and gave her warm smile as she stepped back onto the pine needles of the trail. He’d paled from his usually ruddy skin tone as he suppressed a cough. Her mother stood at the other end of the porch, flicking ash over the edge with one hand, as the other gently ran through the short blonde hair of the youngest.

“Keep in touch,” Mollie warned gently, round cheeks bunching as she smiled at her sister. Rena nodded.

“Will do.”

“Go make us proud, girlie,” Phil said, his long features curled into a grin.

She took breath and tilted her head. “Yep. Take care, alright?”

Her eyes passed to her mother for an instant. The lined and freckled face of the older woman barely moved as sour smoke billowed from her thin lips.

Rena turned, and walked. The boys were waiting beyond the trail and narrow passage, all the way back at the car. She walked, feeling the soft, rich light warm her skin. There was no grass. She moved soundlessly on soft earth and moss, dusted with tiny, brown pine needles. She didn’t turn back, and only stopped when she was knee deep in the ferns by the passage.

“Stay.”

The dogs stood still and watched, Seyna distracted momentarily by a bird overhead before turning back to Rena. She walked towards them and gave each a scratch behind the ear.

“Stay,” she said it softer as she turned and walked towards the passage. Ochre barked twice, sitting on his haunches and tilting his head at her. His protests sped up until they high barks and whines were strung in a chain. Seyna whined once and lay down beside him as he paced and tried to claw Rena back with every sound.

The cries carried through the woods. The boys lifted their heads in the car and saw Rena approach alone, with her small leather rucksack.

“Regrettably, we won’t be able to make a second trip anytime soon,” Ignis began, sharp features softening in concern as she shrugged. “Have you brought everything?”

A high, shaky howl echoed from deeper in the woods.

_No._

“Yeah, this is it,” she said, pulling her bag into her lap as she folded into the car. “Let’s go.”

* * *

 

“Prom, come on, seriously.”

“How did you know?!” he squeaked, drawing level with her as they walked to camp, his torch bright enough to make her wince as he walked backwards in the dark. The pale blue of the haven shimmered gently ahead. She shook her head gently, and with it, the mess of thick brown hair that reached her waist.

“Call it a sixth sense,” she offered, brushing the distressed curls back from her face with a careless hand. “Play with your own hair.”

Up ahead, Noct groaned as he slumped into a chair. “I can’t believe it fell through.”

“Gladio’s right, it could be far worse. At least he had the foresight to bring the supplies… Though, that may have been a tad optimistic on his part.”

“I didn’t call ahead and cancel the reservation, if that’s what you’re trying to say,” he held a bottle of water and pointed gently at Ignis with the same hand.

Dark eyes watched as Rena and Prompto rejoined them at the camp. Having retrieved her rucksack, she set it down gently on a rock and began to dig through it, fishing dark brown bottles from the depths of the bag and quietly placing them beside her. She gathered five. Skin warm from a day that had deepened his tan, Gladio leant back in his chair and cast his eyes back to the pages in his lap.

“Hey, woah, whatcha got there?” Prompto asked, sitting up in his seat. She passed him a bottle and the sheepsfoot knife to wedge the cork off it.

“Cleigne. Cleigne wheat. You can only make so much fucking bread before you start losing it,” she said, raising her eyebrows as she passed a beer to Noctis. As she made her rounds, Ignis held up a hand to lightly refuse.

“I really shouldn’t. At least one of us ought to stay sober.”

She tilted her head and kept the bottle held out. “We’re in a haven, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Somebody could chase a pack of sabertusks onto us.” A rough voice mumbled. Rena turned towards its owner.

“If I’m right here, I can’t do it again.”

He snorted and shook his head, pulling his attention back to the book.

“And it’d be voretooths here, anyway.”

“Well, I suppose one wouldn’t do much harm.” Ignis’ mouth quirked into a small smile. He accepted the bottle and the knife before taking a sip. Then another.

“I wouldn’t say that, it’s stronger than most beers.”

Ignis swallowed and raised an eyebrow. “By how much?”

“A good eight percent stronger. One won’t do you any harm,” she said, voice low and smooth. Rena handed a bottle to Gladio. “But it’s enough to make you sleep.”

The fire set them all in a warm glow as the star-spattered sky passed overhead, still pale blue on the western horizon. Crackling and smoking sweetly, the deep orange embers blossomed into slow flames whenever a gentle breeze passed through the haven. The rock beneath their feet was warm from a day in the bright sun of northern Duscae.

Noctis shook his head and gestured at the tent over his shoulder. “Five of us? In there?”

“Four,” Rena settled on a rock, legs folded as she rested her forearms on her knees, fingertips running over the tender splits in her knuckles. She’d left her hands bare. “I’ve got a good nose, I’m not wrecking it by sleeping in a tent with you guys. No offense.”

“Offense taken!” Prompto gaped, hand splayed against his chest. She rolled her eyes subtly and raised an eyebrow. He loosened into a grin. “I’m just kidding.”

“Oh, my fucking gods,” she trailed, meeting the bottle for a deep drink. She snorted when Ignis looked up from his lap with an already loose smile.

“Blasphemy,” he chastised.

Not missing the wild, game glint in her eye, he pressed his lips to suppress a wider smile and narrowed his eyes in an attempt to look stern.

Rena spoke in mock grandeur. “So cry heathen!”

“Oh, ye of little faith…”

A wry smile twisted onto his lips. Quiet fell amongst them again as they drank in soft company and the warm glow of the fire on their faces. The narrow, sweet trail of smoke rose up and poured into a plush navy sky, connecting this world and the next. Her voice was deep and calm when she spoke up.

“The Astrals are figureheads, but there’s only one real god-.”

Gladio’s bottle plopped as he put it back in his lap and looked up from his book with daring eyes and a raised brow. “Lemme guess, death?”

She nodded and watched the fire. “And life. They’re one and the same.”

“Very wise,” Ignis mused. Gladio leant forwards, holding his beer by the neck.

“How old are you?”

“Gladio!”

“It’s an honest question,” Noctis defended, blue eyes cast wide in interest as he looked innocently at his advisor. He turned back to Rena and sighed. “I’m nineteen, _nearly_ twenty. Couple more weeks and I’m there. Prompto’s the same. Gladio’s-.”

“Twenty-two.”

“I was gonna say old.”

The Shield continued taking a sip and raised his middle finger at Noctis, amber eyes creasing in humour.

“Specs here’s twenty-one. So, that leaves you.”

She shrugged and strummed her knuckles against each other restlessly. “Guess. I won’t be offended.”

Rena turned to Prompto, who shook his head with wide cornflower hues. In the dim light of evening, they were bright rings around large, inky pupils.

“I, uh, pfff, twenty-two?”

She kept her expression blank and turned to Noctis, gently pointing her bottle at him.

“Twenty-two, I think he’s got it.”

Ignis just shook his head. “I can’t, it’s not right to guess a lady’s age.”

She scoffed lightly at the word ‘lady’ and turned to Gladio, staring him down across the fire with game eyes. “You won’t sugar coat it. Give me your worst.”

He took his observations. Scars over her forearms and hands, some faded enough to be a few years old. The Hunters didn’t accept members until they were eighteen. He was about to offer an answer when she finished taking a sip and looked him in the eye. As always, her soft features were held in a hard expression, the contours of her cheeks gently shadowed in the firelight. A faint, silvery scar shone through a thin patch on one of her eyebrows, and Gladio felt conscious of his own. He pouted in thought for a moment.

She was wild. A dog trained to sit but that couldn’t be trusted not to bite. The contrast of pale skin and dark features was bold in the dim glow of the fire. It set strands of her hair into copper and rust. Her skin was smooth around the scars, but her eyes had a muted feral glint. She was contradicting.

“Twenty-four, twenty-five,” he offered to Noctis, shaking his head gently as he took a sip. The Prince turned to Rena and waved his hand over the rest of the group. She tilted her head and took a breath.

“Nineteen.”

“What?!”

“How old’s your sister then?” Noctis asked. “She looked younger.”

“Twenty-five. The younger ones are five and six, so the house is… busy.”

“She’s got a point. Four guys… it’s a lot compared to your house,” Noctis looked up from his beer, eyelids already heavy.  

“Betcha there was never a quiet moment in there,” Prompto laughed quietly. “Your poor dad.”

“He said he’d worked in Altissia,” Ignis drawled, watching Rena with softly curious green hues.

“Yep. Lumber trading. Worked there before I was born and up until a few years ago. He wasn’t home much.”

Prompto sat back in his chair with a ‘huh’ and watched the fire with tired, but still sparkling, blue eyes. “Still, all those girls. Guy’s gotta feel outnumbered.”

Rena let out a quiet snort. Her usually elusive expression fell tired for a moment. “Yeah, well.”

“I mean, sheesh, if I’d grown up like that, wow, I’d-.”

“Prompto,” Ignis hushed. The young blond quirked a concerned eyebrow at him before turning his head to see Rena. All eyes landed on her. Under the collective stare of the group, she tilted her head and spoke quietly.

“I had a brother.”

Silence fell heavy between them, interrupted only by the light crackle of the fire. Ignis took a slow breath before breaking it.

“I’m sorry to hear-.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she shook her head. “It was years ago.”

“Still, it’s no small thing to lose someone close,” he said with sincerity and a tinge of regret in held in the pale green of his eyes.

The blond gaped up at her, horrified, wide blue eyes threatening to water. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-.”

“It’s fine,” she shrugged, voice smooth and steady. After a sip, she put ripples through the quiet again. “We’ve all got empty chairs.”

Prompto sat back in his chair, a troubled frown plaguing pale brows. The sheer volume of her house had been as warm as the crackling hearth.

Pages hadn’t turned. After watching her through her confession, Gladio had taken a hefty mouthful of the smooth, cool beer and let it wash down his throat. The cross of his necklace was heavy on top of a familiar weight in his gut that had landed there a few years ago as the hardest punch he’d even been dealt, and by the absence of a hand. He let his head fall back with a deep sigh.

When dark lashes parted, he couldn’t decide if the sky was studded with stars, or if they were holes in the deep, inky velvet; a glimpse of the heavens beyond.

He hoped there was something beyond.


	4. Judgement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rena faces challenges in her new life, both on-duty and off. Tensions rise as hard heads clash, and this becomes cause for concern for the elder generation.

The red bricks of the east side were rough and crumbling in places. Still, the four of them walked through quiet streets lined by small grocers and corner cafés with peeling signs. Prompto glanced up from his phone at the trail of heavy barks a dog sent through the air.

“You think she’s there?”

“Better be,” Noctis yawned, scratching the back of his raven hair. “Where else would she be?”

Ignis walked alongside, a black leather satchel, heavy with the midweek paperwork, slung over his shoulder. He’d fixed one gloved hand on the strap of the bag, and the other around the car keys.  “You have the right address, yes Prompto?”

He pressed his lips together and showed his phone to the taller man, the text with Rena’s new apartment on the screen. “Yep. She said she wasn’t finished decorating though.”

“Shoulda said, Blondie. I woulda brought the camping chairs.”

Prompto frowned momentarily before twisting his mouth in puzzlement. He’d known these streets, so why did they suddenly not make sense? Chewing the inside of his lip as they reached the end of a block, he peered around the edge, searching the signs that perched two storeys up, peeling black paint on white signs; a monotone contrast to the industrial brickwork they labelled.

When he stopped and spun, the others waited. Gladio rolled his eyes before coughing in his throat. Muscles aching, he stared at Prompto with tired eyes.

Early twilight had cast the sky a pale blue, dusky with the faint peach tones of the sunset behind them as the streetlights flickered on. Yellow orbs, some crusted with rust, others with the mess of the city’s pigeons, did little to light the neighbourhood.

“This way,” Ignis said, after popping open a fresh can of ebony.

The lithe man strode with pace, the others lagging behind as he read the door numbers on the old tenements.

“Thirty-two, thirty-four-- thirty-six was it, Prompto?” he asked, turning around to the younger blond. Prompto flicked a notification away from the map on screen with a small growl.

“Umm...” he trailed, switching apps to view the message again. “Ah! Yeah, thirty-six. Fourth floor.”

Prompto turned to look at the building. His face dropped. The window of the lowest level was smashed, boarded up and graffitied. The second held a gap in the blinds that rustled shut when he passed his gaze over it. He skipped straight to the fourth, after spotting a cat in the window of the one below, and saw it to be open. He didn’t bother looking at the two floors above that one. Part of him wished he didn’t have to say it.

“Yup. This is the one.”

Taking two steps at a time, he clambered up the concrete stairs and pressed on the button for her place. The sharp ring echoed from the open window above. After a moment, a low voice came through, warped by faulty wiring and a bad speaker.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s me, Pro-.”

“Prom, how you doing? I’ll buzz you in.”

He shrugged a little before the door blared loudly enough to make him jump. He took the old, once ornate handle in his palm and turned it. The hallway was thick with the smell of smoke and cheap liquor. They filed in, Gladio’s nose wrinkling until he erupted in a loud sneeze that made even Ignis flinch.

“Cats,” he groaned, sniffing.

Traipsing up the worn concrete stairs, Gladio’s sneezing reached a crescendo on the third floor.

“Found him,” he rasped, eyebrows in a heavy and tired frown.

Prompto knocked on the door, peeling some of the old white paint away, only to be chided by Ignis.

“It’s open,” she called from inside.

The apartment was completely empty.

Spare the sockets on the chipped plaster wall and her rucksack sitting limply under the window, the only thing in the room was their footsteps on the floorboards. The bare brick that made up three of the four walls was crumbling in places. A small pile of rubble, chunks of rusting clay no bigger than acorns, was gathered in a corner.

Her ear twitched at more than one pair of shoes. Frowning into the dusty cupboard, she closed it quietly and poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Hey guys.”

Prompto turned quickly, his mouth open. He gestured loosely at the room. “You uh, I… Well, we-.”

“Deposit was more than I thought it would be,” she tilted her head, coming into the room fully. She fixed her hands in her pockets and looked out of the single-glazed bay window. “And the shower needed fixing.”

“It’s…”

“Shitty.”

“I was going to say cosy,” Noct offered. “But yeah, that works too.”

Ignis gave him a warning glare. The advisor turned to her and took a deep breath, but Prompto was faster.

“What happened to the ‘furniture fund’? You said you’d ‘overcompens’-.”

“Have you any more of that beer around, perchance? I’ve got some ideas of what I’d like to pair it with but I want to be sure,” Ignis interrupted. It was a rare occurrence that had Gladio widen his eyes, as he fought a rising sneeze.

Rena, who’d opened her mouth to respond to the blond initially, flicked dark green eyes to Ignis.  He looked at her with a stiff insistence, trying to get his message across. “Yeah, it’s uh, it’s- I’ll go get it.”

Ignis nodded as she turned and disappeared into the nook of a kitchen. Once out of sight, a gravelly whisper passed him as Gladio stood closer at his side.

“The hell was that about?”

“Later.”

He cast his eyes over the room again before locking on curious, and not entirely concerned, aurous eyes that rolled in boredom. He ambled towards the window and surveyed the deserted street.

Ignis remembered the cabin. The conversation in the kitchen. It had been on his first attempt to seek refuge from the spectacle-stealing children that he’d overheard heated words from the glacial woman. His watchful eye had seen the quiet defeat that barely hinted through her expression; the only clue had been a clenched jaw when she turned back around to tend the pots. He’d retreated to the end of the hallway before her mother had left the kitchen and smiled sweetly at him, followed by an initially meek Mollie, who had brightened a little too artificially on seeing him. He’d nodded politely and held a brief conversation before leaving through the front door. Ignis had rounded the house and slipped in the back, into the kitchen, without being seen, nor heard, by anyone but the dogs.

Rena returned silently, holding out the beer to Ignis.

“Do you want it now, or are you saving it for later?”

“For later, I’m afraid,” he held up the car keys in his palm before abruptly tucking them into his pocket.

“I’ll wrap it.”

Ignis frowned and tilted his head, mouth opening with a question on his tongue.

“You don’t want that getting soaked.” She gestured to the wad of paperwork spilling from his bag and nipped back into the kitchen.

Noctis raised an eyebrow. Ignis shook his head briefly before accepting the bottle again, now wrapped in soft natural linen.

“Thank you,” he smiled graciously, tucking the drink into his satchel alongside thick folders of reports that threatened to give him a headache. “Well, there’s a sobering sight.”

“Then you should get drunk.” She tilted her head, leaning against the small archway that led to the kitchen.

Hair loose, she revelled in the warmth and privacy it provided when she cast her gaze to her own scuffed boots and concealed a silent sigh. Rena swept a little dust from the thigh of her jeans and looked around the room again, mapping the cracks on the ceiling. There were a hundred and one things to fix, and not all of them were the apartment itself.

When she brought her gaze back down, the bodies of the others milling about filled the space nicely. Even their subtle sounds were a relief from the silence that was only ever interrupted by an argument upstairs, a motorbike roaring along the street in the small hours or the slamming of other doors.

A week of long training shifts and sleepless nights in her new home had dusted violet around her eyes again.

“ _That_ is definitely an idea,” Prompto grinned over his shoulder as he crouched low, rummaging through his backpack.

“I’ll get the beers. Are you two having?” she asked, eyes flicking between Gladio and Noctis.

The prince shrugged. “Why not?”

“As long as it’s cold,” the taller sighed, still watching with apathy.

She nodded and slipped back into the quieter recess of the apartment to retrieve them. Prompto quickly brought a small package from his backpack, biting his tongue as he tried to straighten the newspaper where it had torn and folded. Gladio peered over inquisitively, only to hear the smooth whisper of Ignis beside him.

“Damn it all, Prompto. I thought we’d discussed this.”

“It’s not a scrapbook, it’s a-.”

“Here you go,” she said, standing in the centre of the room briefly to hand out the beers before retreating to lean against a wall. Rena choked mid-sip when Prompto stood in front of her, gift in hand.

A pale mouth held a warm smile as he bit the inside of his lip and watched with wide cornflower hues. He bounced on the balls of his feet. She put the bottle on the floor and stood up straight, regarding him with careful eyes. He held the gift further out, practically putting it in her hand.

“You really shouldn’t-.”

“Ahh, pfff! We wanted you to have something to start your ‘new life in the city’ off right, and we kinda hope we’ll make a lot of memories. _So_ , I uhh, I got you this,” he rambled, blushing as he smiled crookedly.

Her lips parted when she carefully pulled the paper away, revealing a tan leather photo album. “Prom…”

“We, uh, I kinda got it started for you. Thought you’d like ‘em.”

He grinned bashfully, eyes busy flicking between the book in her hands and the softer expression she wore under the curtain of her hair. She opened it and turned through the first few pages. A few were from after training sessions, mostly the sunsets over the city and boots laced with urban grit instead of mud. A photograph of Ochre nudging Seyna made her jaw clench. Rena huffed out a breath and brought her focus back to Prompto. She shook her head a little and bit her lip.

“Thank you,” she breathed softly, eyes locked on his in sincerity. A gentle cough gathered their attentions. Ignis stepped forward, a slim parcel in hand, wrapped neatly in dark grey paper.

“It appears Prompto and I had similar ideas,” he regarded the blond with a small, but warm, smile.

“Guys,” Rena said, voice low enough to be hoarse. The second book was a svelte black moleskin. The pages were a crisp white, ruled, but blank.

“I’d quite appreciate it,” Ignis brought his drawl to a pause when she looked back up at him. “If you wrote some of your recipes in this. I’d be willing to trade mine, of course, but Cleigne gastronomy is rarely shared.”

“Rarely _written_ ,” she quirked an eyebrow. She closed the book, running her thumb over the soft fabric binding. “Yeah, I’ll fill it up. Thank you.”

He nodded and swept away. Noctis stepped forward.

“Oh gods,” she sighed, shaking her head.

“Don’t worry, mine has strings attached,” he said airily. She fixed on him gently as he held up a fountain pen and pointed it to the recipe book. “You’re gonna need this to fill that in…on the condition you mark a map with all the fishing spots you know. Deal?”

“Noctis…”

“And I also brought you this,” he nodded, pulling a bottle of deep amber liquid out from behind his back. “Should be familiar.”

Her eyes widened a little. “Secullam whiskey.”

“Yep, so… thanks for not killing me.”

“Thanks for not pressing charges.”

He shook his head with a beat of laughter. “Oh, no, that was Iggy’s move. Anyway,” he held up his beer bottle. “Welcome to the Crown City.”

“Nice to be here,” she snorted. The dark glass met in the circle with a clinking chorus. “Cheers.”

The others chimed in. “Cheers.”

They each took a long draw of the refreshingly cool beer that swirled in bittersweet maltiness. Rena drained half her bottle before pausing and frowning slightly at Prompto.

“What?”

“Nothing! I’m just thinking… why don’t we make a night of it? _Really_ introduce you to city living. There’s some good clubs...” Prompto sang as he began to dance tentatively, biting his bottom lip.

Noctis’ disgusted groan only made a grin spread wider on his face as he spoke. He looked around at the group. Ignis was already exhausted by the idea, mournfully stroking the heavy satchel at his side. He turned to Gladio, who didn’t look overly taken with it either.

“Gotta keep an eye on charmless here. Maybe some other time.”

“We could go to yours.” Noct’s eyes searched his Shield, who had turned to him with a soft frown. “You said Iris was over at a friend’s and your dad was staying at the Citadel to help plan the party. So...”

Gladio narrowed his eyes. “Of all the times you choose to listen to me-.”

“We wouldn’t have to worry about getting into anything messy with anyone,” he sipped and raised a brow playfully. “You could have a drink too.”

“-and invite yourself to _my_ damn house-.”

“I could keep an eye on things and step in if they get out of hand. Otherwise,” Ignis patted the satchel. “At least I’ll get something done.”

Gladio unfolded his arms and frowned heavily at Ignis. He shook his head.

“Fine.”

 

* * *

 

“How the hell do you drink this stuff?!”

“Just do,” Rena shook her head, voice pulled hoarse by the harsh, fiery kiss of whiskey. “It’s just… water with character. Had it before.”

A soft bleat came from one of the chairs. They turned their heads to the sleeping Prince at the table. He snored lightly before shuffling in his chair, head lolling onto his chest.

Having deemed it easier to clean than the coffee table and the plush rug it stood on, they’d gathered in the dining room of the Amicitia house. The high ceiling above them was smoothly plastered, with light bouncing from a delicate wrought iron chandelier.

Gladio put his glass back on the dark, almost black, wood of the table with a loud _clack_ , winced and pried an eye open to check it was intact. Breathing a sigh of relief, he reached for the bottle again.

“You’re not old enough. Who the hell let you drink?” he asked, pouring himself another half-glass of liquid fire.

“Nobody fuckin’ stopped me.”

Glass raised to his mouth, he narrowed his eyes at her. She held an impassive expression to look back at him. Seconds passed as his jaw clenched and brows sank at her stubborn ability to hold her ground.

“You know what? I-.”

“Gladio,” a low voice drawled from the other end of the table. Surrounded by paperwork and scribbling through a report as he poured another cup of coffee from the pot. Green eyes only left the pages for a moment, long enough to give him a warning glare. The shield shook his head.

“I was just gonna say, why don’t we settle this fair and square?” he asked, turning back to face Rena.

She watched with stony eyes and nursed the glass in her hand, running her fingertips over the once cool glass. Picking up his with a hasty hand, he pointed to Rena, and a deeply flushed Prompto.

“Lil’ competition. Whoever lasts longest?”

A snort came from across the table. She looked up with the quiet dare he’d so often given her. “Depends.”

“Whiskey,” he slurred, taking a sour gulp of the single malt he’d chosen. “We’re even so far; let’s see if you can keep up.”

Ignis spluttered quietly at the end of the table, a wry smile twisting onto his face.

“You’re more than welcome to join, Iggy.”

“ _Whiskey_ is a dangerous nectar,” he lilted, shaking his head. He looked up with a pale warmth in his angular features. “The three of you would do well to remember that.”

“Count me out, guys,” Prompto wheezed, shaking his head. After a loud belch relieved him, he settled back in his chair with a mumbled ‘pardon me’ and giggled. His bright crimson cheeks radiated heat as they balled into a smile.

“Alright,” she tilted her head, filling her glass again. He held his up to toast.

“Here’s to the winner.”

“Here’s to whiskey.”

The sharp smoke of it pierced their noses before it slipped down their throats, setting fires in their voices. His usual deep timbre had its rasping edge sharpened when he spoke through the liquor flames in his throat.

“Still don’t know how the _hell_ you impressed the marshal.”

She sipped again and answered in a low, husky tone. “Me neither.”

“From what I heard, you were a disrespectful piece of shit in your first week,” he remarked, leaning back in his chair as he drummed on the table.

Eyes heavy with drink fixed on him. Met by a returned stare, she shook her head slowly and puffed out a breath. Rena turned the glass in her hand, swirling the whiskey as it clung to the sides, falling down slowly and settling into a clear pool of honeyed sin. Her glance met eyes of the same hue. He set his jaw in challenge. She hissed a breath and closed her eyes.

“Disrespect and lack of respect aren’t the same thing.”

His drumming fingers stilled. He leant forwards, elbows on the smooth table, as he growled out his words. “They are when it’s someone like Cor. He’s your commanding officer, fuckin’ act like it.”

Keeping her expression stony, she finished the glass and put it on the polished wood quietly.

Mildly unsettled by the silence at the other end of the table, Ignis looked up from his paperwork again. Their jaws were mutually clenched. Gladiolus’ eyes flashed dangerously as she sat up straight and locked on him with darkening green hues. He leant forwards slowly, arms tensing against the table as if he were about to pounce. He ground his words out as a dare.

“You wanna try that again?”

“I think you two have had quite enough for one night,” Ignis said warily, pausing in his report. He stared at Gladio, willing him to bite his tongue. Her voice gathered his attention when she spoke quietly in an even tone.

“You want me to leave?”

“No,” he shook his head. A dark feeling in his gut sparked with mischief as she watched him impassively. Gritting his teeth at her persistent lack of expression and inability to be read, he ground out his words. “I wanna know what you’re thinking. You keep it all locked up in there-.”

“Gladio...”

“-and act like you don’t give a shit, so why not share what’s going on in that little head of yours, princess?”

Ignis’ eyes widened fractionally. He met Prompto’s saucer-like hues at the opposite end of the table and shook his head lightly when the younger man opened his mouth. The choking silence of the room was interrupted by a quiet snort of laughter.

“Because a lot of the time, it’s not much,” she offered, pouring another glass.

“I’d bet,” he smirked. He filled his own and raised it before taking a long draw.

Rena finished her drink and hissed a satisfied breath, feeling the whiskey claw to survive as it slipped down her throat. Eyebrow raised in question, she spoke reluctantly. “You really wanna know what I think? Of you? Even if it’s disrespectful?”

“Bring it on,” he said flatly, setting his glass back on the table with a bold clack.

“Dick.”

His eyes widened and lost their playful spark. The magnitude and age of the house grew around him, it’s history and pride armouring his every fibre. Every stone in the walls, every floorboard, every painting. Every Amicitia to ever walk, and alongside kings no less, was behind him in a smoky grace that filled his lungs and tempered the iron of his blood with every breath. The sound of chair legs scraping against the floor cut through the room. He sat back and spread his arms in challenge.

“You want it? Come get it, girl, but we call it cock here,” he smirked mockingly through his frown. Rena snorted a quiet laugh and shook her head.

“Uhm… guys?”

The two of them turned to Prompto, effectively pinning him to his chair. Knees pulled to his chest and hands gathered under his chin, he pointed a finger past her.

Ignis was standing by Rena, reaching slowly for the bottles that held no more than an inch of their former contents. He poured the last of the Leiden into Gladio’s glass and topped up her Secullam. His cool, even tone was enough to douse the argument in its place.

“Enough,” he said, pale jade eyes locked on Rena before looking at Gladio. “Both of you. Act your ages and apologise, if _respect_ has any bearing for either of you.”

Suitably chastised, they fell quiet. Rena swirled her drink, finished it, and edged the glass onto the table with a subtle tap. She was too tired to wrestle with her own stubbornness.

“Sorry.”

Amber eyes flickered up from the table. They meet a deep, dark green that watched and for once, showed some semblance of emotion; of quiet sincerity. He watched as she pulled the hardness back into her expression, deciding what she would and wouldn’t show him. Mentally damning her for being unreadable, he nodded once.

“Me too.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

His eyebrow cocked in thought. The air around him grew cold as he was cast back to a small, draughty structure, perfumed by herbs and blood. His mouth filled with the taste of a deep, gamey casserole, hot and rich, that had been tasted by everyone except the hand that made it. He parted his lips to speak and paused.

She was still looking at him. Unchanged. Unaffected by it all. Unease breathed across the back of his neck in a cool sweep.

“The whiskey did,” he stared her down, finishing his glass and putting it on the table with finality.

 

* * *

 

Voice still ashes from the night before, Rena coughed in her throat and tied her hair up into its usual bun.

“It’ll go great, just wait and see.”

She turned her head to Prompto. He was sitting on a low bench in the dim locker room, rocking side to side with his hands pinned between his knees. Dressed in black sweatpants and a grey tank, his wristbands were the only colour still on him as he paled from too much alcohol and the smell of stale sweat that could never be scrubbed from the room.

“It’ll go how it goes,” she sighed, shutting the locker loudly enough to make Prompto jump.

“Agh! How are you _not_ hungover? You had, like, a bottle of whiskey and it’s,” he brought his phone to his face, only to wince at the bright screen. “Seven-forty-three, oh man...”

Devolving into whines, he ran his fingers through fine blond hair and massaged his temple with the heel of his palm. She shook her head and crouched down to tie her laces.

“That was over a couple of hours and I slept it off.”

“Not to mention getting told off by Iggy. That’s probably enough to sober anyone up,” he contemplated, meeting her eyes when they flicked up to look at him. She breathed a sigh and kept tying, pulling the boot laces taut as her fingers worked quickly. “How did that argument even start? I thought you guys were starting to get along…”

“He’s a prideful pain in the ass, that’s all I know about him,” she sighed, sitting on the floor and beginning to bind her hand in sparring wraps. “Other than the obvious shit.”

“He’s okay, he’s just… a little prickly. Doesn’t like me either.”

Prompto gave a tired smile and looked at her as she pulled the fabric tight. Finishing one and starting on the other with a speed only practice could afford, she sank into her thoughts. Of all the swarming transience, one surfaced again and again.

_You need the job._

“Yeah, well. Hopefully his babysitting gig’ll keep him out of my way, and me out of his.”

“Hopefully. Who’s the marshal got you sparring against anyway? Just the guys from the circle or…?” Prompto asked, shaking his head with a curious pout.

“He didn’t say. One of the guys, you know the one missing a finger? Yeah, he said they were bringing us in and putting us against _actual_ Crownsguard, so… Might be fucked,” Rena nodded at the end, tightening her hand wraps and bun.

“Oh crap. Y-you’ll be fine, I mean, it’s _you._ You put me on my butt more times than I can count,” he said, springing to his feet as she began to walk from the dim fluorescent lights of the recruits locker room. She cracked her knuckles, the sound dulled by the fabric steadying her hands. “Well, like sixty times… Sixty-three.”

“Only because I didn’t want anyone else putting you on your ass.”

Prompto paused, open-mouthed, and spluttered quietly around an answer. “Well, yeah! So, you’ll be fine! Don’t worry about it.”

“Prom, you’re the one worrying.”

“Am not!”

She raised a dark eyebrow at him as they walked through the lower halls of the Crownsguard headquarters, her gait steady as he bounced at her right, falling behind before running ahead and walking backwards, repeating the fidgeting cycle.

“Okay, fine, so I’m a little worried, but it’s not just that,” he blurted.

Prompto waved his hands while he spoke, occasionally half-ripping through the chaos of blond hair. His attempts to style it hadn’t worked this morning. Instead, he was left with a limp fringe that hung down over his eyes, only to be constantly flicked or blown away.

“What’s going on?”

The low and smooth voice pulled his attention from messing with the limited textures of his clothes.

“Prompto.”

She was looking at him, dark eyes cast curious and careful. His own gaze met hers as they stopped at the end of the hallway-turned-tunnel that led to the training field. She raised an eyebrow and ducked her head, prompting him to speak if he had anything on his tongue.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked, watching him carefully for all the tiny facial movements and hinted expressions she suppressed with practiced habit.

Pale lips twitched around an answer. “N-no! I mean, it’s not _your_ problem, so -.”

“Do you wanna talk about it anyway?”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Later?”

“Once we’re done. Get something to eat then come round, if you want,” she offered, eyes fixed on him as he ducked his head and looked up at her through pale lashes.

“You sure it’s okay?”

She huffed a laugh through her nose before nodding. “Could use the noise. And hey,”

“Yeah?” he asked, quirking a brow above a soft blue eye.

“Ask him about the guns. It might work, but you won’t know if-.”

“If I don’t ask. Yep, I’ll- I’ll try,” Prompto nodded, puffing away his hair again before sweeping it back with a pale, freckled hand.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

Prompto gave a crooked grin before stepping out and wincing in the bright morning. The sun was still low over the field, it’s heat slow and heavy. He jogged to the far end with a wave, finding his place amongst the other recruits continuing with their training. She sent him off, waving subtly, before turning towards the small group, counting eleven bodies. As she drew closer, one was revealed to be a familiar profile.

The silhouette was lithe and tall; held with an easy grace that would’ve look stiff on anyone else. Dressed in the black of the Crownsguard training uniform, it was a humble shift from his usually svelte appearance. Glowing with sweat in the early morning, his sharp features were softened by a wispy mop of tawny hair. He adjusted his glasses swiftly before turning towards her.

“Morning Ignis.”

“Good morning. How are we today?” he lilted quietly, searching her features for the drained marks of a hangover. He was relieved to see none. Observant hues, darker than his own, were reading the Guards every muscle, building a mental ledger of her new opponents.

“I’m alright, you?”

“I’m well,” he nodded, looking over the rest of the choice recruits. Ignis said his next words with a keen tone, almost growling. “And ready.”

“Alright, calm down,” she breathed a laugh, shaking her head at the keenness of the advisor. “What’s going on?”

“Hmm? Oh, this,” he swept a hand down his chest lightly, gesturing to the insignia on his vest. “The marshal has requested the new recruits be tested against more experienced members. It’s common practice for the early graduates.”

“Right then,” she sighed, popping a joint in her neck.

She cast her eyes over the rest of the group, all toned and ready in the young day. Her eyes were frantic. They jumped from the harsh scars of one, the bruised cheek of another, to the various weapons glinting at their sides. The bright steel came in a multitude of guises. A cool breeze coasted over the back of her neck, stealing any warmth the sun had given the pale skin. She shook the distractions from her mind and tried to focus on one thing, and one thing only; _who first?_

“Ah, here he comes now,” Ignis noted, giving Rena a brief nod before grouping together with the rest of the sworn-in members.

Returning the sentiment, she greeted the others with the silent but quick locking of eyes. The camaraderie that swirled through the other group was a ghostly cat, rubbing between them and herding them together. It bound them close and kept them there. The recruits were loosely gathered together by their nerves. One pounce of that cat towards them, and they’d scatter like pigeons.

The quiet, powerful presence of the marshal hushed those who dared to talk. Already organised in lines of three, the two groups stood several feet apart; on one side the black of the Guard made a foreboding unit. On the other, the recruits were dressed in muted grey t-shirts and reeked of naivety, no matter how stern or serious any of them were. Hubris perfumed them. The Guards could smell it a mile off and would not let it see the end of the day.

The only sound was the steady footsteps of the marshal, pounding carefully against the dry, dusty earth.

“Morning.”

The groups chanted back in unison. “Good morning, sir.”

He stopped his pacing by the recruits and pulled his gaze from the ground, raising it with the sun. Leonis turned and coolly eyed his chosen few.

“A good morning indeed. Today marks the final day of your training. Succeed, and you will be sworn in amongst the finest Lucis has to offer in the name and service of His Majesty, King Regis. Fail and you return to the standard training or admit defeat. Is this acceptable?” He ground out the final words deeply, daring them to quit.

“No, sir.”

The marshal took a deep breath and stood to face them, hands gathered behind his back. “The lieutenant will explain the terms of assessment.”

He stepped in powerfully, standing alongside his mentor with a sharp focus held in the strong lines of his face. Dark hair was ruffled by the gentle breeze, freed of its usual cotton baseball cap. Gladiolus, in full Crownsguard uniform, stood true to his height and provided a fiery contrast, with grit and heat in his voice, to his glacial superior.

“Take your chosen weapon and spar in pairs. You can bruise, puke, bleed, break bones and have ‘em broken, whatever’s necessary” he nodded, a deeper fire in his aurous eyes. “You can beat your opponent by knocking them to the ground _and_ removing their weapon. Succeed and you’ll be re-matched and tried again. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You yield, you fail. If you don’t meet the cut,” he passed his gaze slowly over the recruits, locking on a pair of focused dark green eyes as he continued. “I suggest you leave.”

The recruits were steady, eyes forwards and standing to attention. Gladio stalked away, heavy boots as the dominant beat in their ears as blood began to pound. The marshal stepped forward, distracting them from rapidly tunnelling vision.

“Arm yourselves, pair up and wait for my word.”

“Yes, sir.”

The recruits moved, as a loose pack, towards the weapon rack. Taking their tools of choice, Rena’s fingertips met the black leather grip of a sword. She weighed it in her hand. The steel was lighter than her own, but she hadn’t held that for months. Not since it had been thrown into the trunk of the Regalia to be brought back to the Citadel and likely melted down for cutlery. The blade she held now was smoother, sharper, the edge undented by the attacks of a heavy broadsword.

_It’ll do._

Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from the rack and stood at the edge of the group. Her eyes were busy. The four guards that had stood alongside them for Leonis’ instructions were at their own weapon stand. Ignis stood a little further away, unarmed and relaxed in the morning sun. Gladio was beside him. He shucked off his jacket and folded it roughly, dropped it by the stand and rubbed the rough stubble of too many days unshaved. In a stormy burst of transient crystals, the dark steel of his broadsword was in his hand. He slung it over his shoulder and, after a few brief words to Ignis, stood ready in position.

“You Lauritas?”

Rena looked up from tightening the pale linen wraps on her hands. He was tall, dark blond hair in a short cut and deeply tanned. She nodded.

“I’m Castor. You’re with me,” he said smoothly, his musical voice even as he cast light brown eyes over her.

“Nice to meet you,” she tilted her head. He gave a brief, dimpled smile and turned, striding to his space in the field.

Mapping the scar lining a muscle of his neck and the slightest uneven hint to his gait, her mind was already ticking, piecing him together without him breathing a word. He drew his own short, curved sword from its scabbard and stood to face her.

“Any tips?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at the jovial man, who couldn’t have been much older than thirty. Castor swayed from side to side smoothly.

“Win,” he said with a gentle smile.

Silence fell amongst the recruits again. Each had been paired to a Guard and escorted to a space in the field, six feet away from any other pairs. They stood quiet and still as the marshal walked amongst them; a pensive fingertip, lingering in thought and decision, amongst his slate and obsidian chess pieces. He reached the edge and came to a slow halt.

“Begin.”

Steel flashed in the early sun, half-blinding her as a blade came at her side. Rena stepped back lightly. Turning his sword with dexterity, he came at her, slicing through the air with a manic grin on his face. He left his flank open. Darting past him, her sword came within inches of his side before being deflected by his own curved blade.

Caramel hues turned bright and keen as he turned, holding open arms as a dare. The elbow that hit his chest knocked the air from his lungs. She hooked her foot behind his and pulled. Castor fell onto his back with a heavy thud. He swung at her legs. Eyes wide, she kicked his hand, sending the blade scuttling across the powdery dirt.

“…Shit,” he whispered, feeling the cool tip of her sword beneath the cleft in his chin.

She raised her eyebrows. “Sorry.”

He shook his head and grinned. “No, that was… Well, it went pretty much as good as it coulda. You can let me up now.”

“Can I?” Rena asked, already reining her breathing back to a calm tide.

“I’d nod but, yeah,” he eyed the length of the blade. She pulled it away as he sat up, puffing out his cheeks. Chapped lips pulled into a merry smile. “Onto the next one, I guess.”

She nodded and stood a little away from him, trying to spot another free opponent. A pained groan came from the next pair over as a recruit was thrown to the ground, shoulder first, and pinned there by a lance. Tightening the linen again, she cast her gaze further, trying to spot the still amongst a small battle of motion.

_Oh fuck…_

Daggers crossed above his head, Ignis tore them through the air and cast them back into fizzing crystals. His opponent shook their head dizzily and stumbled away. Breathing in the composure that softened him, he quickly scanned the heads in the group.

“Welp, there’s my next one,” Castor laughed, giving Rena a hearty pat on the shoulder as he jogged to catch Ignis’ leftovers.

Pale green eyes met a darker hue again. He gestured welcomingly to the ground in front of him and gave a small smile. Shaking her head at the ground, scuffed boots crossed the powdery dirt, dodging the partners as they danced with metal and brutality. Ignis beckoned her closer; an artist summoning a patron to the sacred studio of his creations. A dark patch of blood pooled on the ground, sinking in slowly as the finer spray of the strike plumed from it.

“Apologies for the mess,” he frowned minimally, pushing his glasses back over the bridge of his nose. “Now, ready?”

A burst of crystals put the daggers back in his grip. They gleamed, dark and ornate, in hands that knew them intimately.

“Trying to prove that.”

“Trying? Good, you’re not as proud as the last one.” He rocked on his feet, blades held poised to strike. “Now… Are you ready?”

“No,” she shook her head, slicing through the air.

Ignis blocked the sword both at the blade and the guard, pushing to twist it in her hand. Relief came when he stopped forcing. That brief moment was followed by the rapid attacks of the daggers. They rained down from above, below, the sides; never stopping. She blocked them. Steel met steel and met again as Rena concentrated on avoiding the razor edges of Ignis’ bewildering assault.

A rush of air breathed threateningly against her neck as a dagger was pulled back, only to stab forward again. She met it with her blade. Dodging aside, she turned and pressed the flat of the sword against his neck. Ignis barely paused. Grace and speed were his greatest weapons; he fought elegantly. He spun, daggers raised and ready. Rena waited, holding her breath, for the knives to trap her blade again.

Once they did, she used her height and pushed the sword up, hooking Ignis’ glaives high above his head and spinning towards him, driving a shoulder into his side. His daggers were released, turning back to thin air before they, or he, had hit the ground.

Panting lightly, Rena kept her sword a few inches from Ignis’ face. Mildly stunned by his quick descent, he shook his head to clarity and blinked.

“Now, that ought to do it,” he gave the slightest hint of a smirk and looked around him, searching the dry, compacted earth for his glasses.

“Sorry,” she swallowed. Rena plucked the glasses from near her feet and passed them over to the advisor once he stood. He fixed them back onto his face, nestled comfortably above the subtle bump of his nose.

“Nonsense. That was excellent. Very clean. Mind your footwork though, you were clumsy towards the end.”

“Will do,” Rena breathed, nodding as she turned the light sword in her hand, already looking for the next opponent. “Hold on. If my footwork was clumsy, how did I get you down?”

Ignis tilted his head and rubbed gently at his ribs, feeling the dull ache of a bruise brewing under his skin like a summer storm. “The shoulder was unexpected.”

“Shit, sorry.”

“It’s alright. Now… who’s next?”

He peered over the heads of the group, some bloody and some bowed in submission. Others dodged blades that threatened heavy blows. Tightening her bun as she caught her breath fully, Rena bit her tongue. Castor was grinning madly at a lanky recruit Rena recognised as her initial partner from the circle. The scar on his cheek was swiftly given a twin.

Dust clouded at their feet as a body landed between them, worryingly limp at first. Pairs of green eyes watched as the recruit turned onto his back and wheezed, covered in the pale earth of the field.

“Watch your feet.”

The gruff voice was flat, almost sarcastic, from the direction the recruit had been thrown from. Ignis clenched his jaw at his friend, who only shrugged, sniffing nonchalantly.

“Just wait,” Ignis said gently, scanning the rest of the group, willing another guard to become available and fast.

“Nah.”

His tone held warning. “Rena, don’t be stubborn.”

She turned to him as she walked away and shrugged lightly, holding her sword with her ring and pinky fingers at the others worked to tighten the binding of the opposite hand.

“Rules are rules.”

Stretching her hands out, she turned and walked the remaining twenty feet towards Gladiolus. He stood motionless, broadsword slung casually over his shoulder.

“Lieutenant,” she nodded in respect.

“Lauritas,” he said curtly. Gladio cocked his head. “You gonna make this interesting for me?”

She swivelled the blade in her hand and shook her head. “Hopefully not.”

“Good.”

He readied his blade, stretching his jaw out before grinding his teeth again. He carved through the heating space. Rena dodged. Abruptly reminded of the speed he could marry to power, she used her first few movements to avoid the sharp expanse of the broadsword. Gladio swung upwards. Her blade was deflected as if it were nothing. He cut through the air, aiming at her side. She caught his sword with hers and planted her feet in the ground, reinforcing her blade with a bound palm as he pushed. Teeth gritted, she slipped aside and let his blade lurch forwards.

A rough gasp left her when it swung over her head, close enough to send a threatening breeze across her nape. She shifted on her feet. He swivelled his sword into both hands and chased her with the steel again. Rena stepped backwards lightly. Her thoughts raced. He was fast but powerful, and by no means clumsy. There was a practiced grace in his movements, afforded by thousands of repetitions of drills as close to his own nature as his pulse.

The blade crashing down from above put a stop to her thoughts. She caught it with her own and held it there.

All pretence was gone, and her mind was made empty and clear. It was like breathing fresh air again. This was a fight. This was survival. This was her, or him.

She crouched and shouldered between his knees, jumping back to her feet behind him as he swung around, blade first. Rena ducked. Gladio carved diagonally, bringing the dark blade up with a frustrated growl. She lunged forwards and locked her arm around his, drove her knee into the back of his thigh and threw him to the ground, shoulders first.

The Shield blinked, panting slowly. He glared up with burning eyes. The tip of her blade was paused above his collarbone, but she hadn’t forced his weapon from his hand.

He kicked at her legs and leapt to his own. Rena rolled from the fall and pushed herself to stand again, sword still firmly in her grip. Gladio didn’t give her any time. He lurched forwards, blade splitting the air as it raced for her shoulder, flashing menacingly in the sun. The sharp sound of steel singing bounced back to him as his blow was jarred, halted by the flat of her blade.

The hand she’d used to reinforce her weapon again was pressed flush to her shoulder. She used her back to force his sword away. Rena skidded aside and sliced towards his wrists. With a fast swivel, he used the ornate handle to block and growled again, casting her sword away. She stabbed quickly. Driving the blade through the intricacies of the handle and twisting it, she wrenched the sword from his hands. In the same fluid movement, she passed Gladiolus, turned, and shouldered against his waist. In the abrupt loss of his counterweight, he fell onto his side with a thud.

Panting and polished with sweat, she swallowed thickly and let the broadsword fall from her own. He growled and summoned it, grasped the handle, using the momentum of his swing to bring himself to his feet and turning with regained finesse, led by the sharp edge of the sword. The high, single beat of her blade blocking his was followed by a low snarl from Gladiolus. She held firm, weapon reinforced by a steady hand at the end of the fuller.

“Enough.”

The marshal’s stern tone cut through the silence. All the others, recruits and guards alike, had been still and recovering for five minutes. Broken noses were being pinched; one recruit had turned ashy at the smell of blood and a nasty clout to the head while another was unconscious. Other than Leonis, they were the only two still standing, and unbeaten.

“I think she’s proven herself, Lieutenant.”

Gladiolus cast his sword away in a sparking prismatic burst and bowed his head slightly, out of respect for his mentor. “Yes, sir.”

“Lauritas, with the others,” the marshal instructed calmly. “Single file.”

She nodded with an affirmative and joined the rest, taking her place in the line as she slowed her breathing. Leonis’ pacing prompted them to attention. As he walked past his chain of recruits, he eyed them sharply with crystalline blues as pale as steel. He passed the line again. It had already shortened to four. He stopped, one by one, in front of his chosen few and asked the same question each time.

Polished black shoes halted in front of a pair of scuffed boots, planted firmly in the ground. She looked him in the eye, as steady and strong as a river. He watched. An icy stare and a stern frown, tempered by a lifetime of service, met a smoother brow and darker hues.

“Will you swear?”

Her voice was unwavering.

“Yes, sir.”

 

* * *

 

Lit by harsh fluorescent light, the room was lined by pewter lockers, all smooth and in good repair. The faint smell of citrus wafted in from the adjacent showers. Alongside the scrupulous hygiene and order of the locker room, she turned the key and opened the generous locker once more. The hesitant click of the shutter bounced around the room.

“Prom-.”

“I know! I know! It’s just- this doesn’t happen every day, y’know?” He raised his pale brows, grinning broadly. “It’s a big deal.”

“Only if you _make_ it a big deal,” she tilted her head, plucking out blackened steel and letting the ball chain run through her fingertips.

Rena read the name and ran the pad of her thumb over the indentations that had been stamped into existence, if only to mark absence. She ducked into the necklace and tucked the dog tags into her charcoal tank top. They were reinvigorated with the warmth of her skin within moments.

“This _is_ a big deal!” Prompto squealed, clicking the shutter again. She shouldered into her jacket and pulled the zip up, shaking her head the whole time.

“It’s really not. It just kinda happened.”

“Ah, come on!” he encouraged brightly, blowing a brisk raspberry at her. She raised a brow and fought the smile, only letting a corner of her lip quirk. “HA! There!”

He beamed and quickly took another picture, before she could protest. “Photographic evidence that Renata Lauritas, the one and only, does _in fact_ smile!”

“That wasn’t a smile, that was barely a smirk,” she frowned, wrangling thick hair into the least messy bun she could manage and not exactly succeeding.

“You can smirk too?! Oh, knock me down with a feather! Chocobo one, if you can.”

Watching him with fond exasperation, she shook her head and sighed. She fished the gloves from her pocket and pulled them on over scarred, red knuckles. A soft silence fell in the room. Suddenly weighted with the parting, Prompto could see the breath of loneliness plume in a rough alley he’d decided to pass through months before. _I need to tell him about the guns._ The thought of attending training alone made him deflate slightly.

Sharp eyed, as ever, she saw.

“Hey, do you wanna get beers after this? Some pizza to soak it up?”

He was nodding before she’d stopped talking, then shook his head. “Wait, aren’t the guys having a party?”

“Yeah, but,” she weaved her head from side to side. “I was never one for parties and… Four’s a crowd, to be honest. They’re also a bunch of fuckers I’m gonna get sick of seeing, so there’s that.”

Prompto laughed, partly from her crude words and partly through relief. There would be people checking on him in that alley after all.

“Anyway, I’ve got three minutes to get there and technically you’re not supposed to be here,” she said gently. “ _Yet._ Go on, I’ll catch you later, alright? Beer’s on me.”

The pair crept from the changing room into the polished basement hallways of the Citadel. Even two levels below the ground, and rattled by the subway, the floor was marble. Soft yellow sconces were stationed along the smooth walls.

“ _This_ pizza boy,” he pointed to himself with his thumbs. “Should be there around nine. See ya later!”

“Don’t get caught on the way out,” she raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll just say I was looking for Noct.”

With a shake of her head, she waved Prompto off and set a pace down the hallway, listening as Prompto’s footsteps faded away and another’s came into earshot. Rena caught up with the fellow recruit and listened to the few cocky words they had to offer.

A heavy mahogany door, intricately carved with the Crownsguard insignia, had gathered the four recruits together. They waited in a baited silence. When footsteps drew closer to the door, growing louder with every stride, their purposeful tapping could only mean one thing.

“Inside,” Cor said quietly, but no less stern. “Report to the captain.”

“Yes, sir,” was offered quietly by each of them.

The room was cavernous. It’s ceiling was braced with black marble, the pale flecks glittering like stars. That same marble was beneath their feet. Trapped between a stone sky of false stars and a motionless black sea that reflected it, the boldest colours in the room were lustrous gold and a piercing blue that watched them keenly for the first time.

Captain Amicitia had absolute faith in Cor Leonis and his selection. He’d never failed him before, even postponing his own son’s swearing-in ceremony. Years of working together in loyalty to the man who wore a heavy crown had aligned their interests, no matter how different the two men had been.

When the crop of four young, strong recruits stood before him, he couldn’t help but agree with the marshal’s choice.

He addressed each by name, watching them as they responded with the respect due not only to their superior, but their elder. The men didn’t meet his eyes at first. Clarus waited, letting silence do its work, until they looked directly at him. One pair of eyes held his gazes steadily. Dark and timeless, they had an strange familiarity. She didn’t look at him through challenge, or pride; it was out of respect for both of them.

“You are here to swear to the Crownsguard, to Insomnia, to the kingdom and His Majesty, King Regis Lucis Caelum. You will speak the oath, and you will keep it. Understood?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Clarus stood before them and observed. Fists over their hearts in salute, they began.

The rhythm of individuals speaking for common purpose has a haunting quality. The sincerity of the oaths sworn is strung together by voices speaking the same words, hearts marching at the same pace and lives, no matter how different, bound in that moment in brotherhood and purpose.

The four before him couldn’t have been more different from each other. Some native to the Crown City, some from the far reaches of Lucian territories, they each had their strengths, and each had shown they could overcome their weaknesses. Their voices, steadfast in sincerity, filled the room and made pride swell in his chest.

_“I swear to uphold the oath in its entirety. Until the end of my time, I will serve the King and his people._

_I will defend those in need of shields. I will fight for those in need of swords. I will guide those in need of eyes._

_I will wear the Lucian black with pride, and keep it clean of the stains of dishonesty, of disloyalty, and of hubris._

_I will have faith in the Six and will earn their blessing in return._

_I will spill no Lucian blood, nor that of allies. I will remain when all others abandon, serve when all others betray._

_I swear this on my life, or may I be damned and exiled. I swear to the Crownsguard, its comrades, its Captain, and its King._

_In nomine deorum, ego mereo sine percontor.”_

Smoothing the hairs on the back of his neck, Gladiolus turned away from the old tongue and towards the light footsteps that approached. They stopped by his side and observed the scene below them; a play grounded in the bloodied grit of reality and its wars, set in a room of marble so black they were being forged in the royal colour.

A soft inhale beside him warned of impending words.

“You’re aware of the marshal’s decision then?”

“Course I am,” he said, his voice hushed to a soft sandy rasp. “I was in the room when he told dad.”

“And your father? He just agreed to it?”

Gladio took a deep breath, clenching his jaw as he fixed on the heads now bowed in salute. “He had to. We need to beat anyone who comes their way. We don’t have a choice. It’s just…”

“It’s never just duty,” Ignis whispered, turning to the young Shield.

They both knew that. The reality of their positions had seeped into their beings long ago, staining their bones Lucian black. Every last shred of their souls was bound. No matter how free they thought they were, no matter how far they ran or how long they hid, the chains would shake and call them back. Those chains were armour. They were weapons. They were the cages their souls rattled, cursed, craved and called home.

The pair of them were birds; taught to fly, only to have their wings taken.

“What will you do?”

Gladio shook his head, feeling his chest rise and fall as he held himself up with crossed arms. “Win. What else?”

“Learn. Knowledge is power, Gladio. She can’t best you if you know her techniques.”

He cocked an eyebrow and took words he trusted on board.

“Who’s to say she doesn’t have others?”

Ignis turned to him briefly before looking back at the recruits. The elder Amicitia was addressing them, his clear tone deep and filling the room. Green eyes landed on a mess of hair, gathered into a loose swirl.

“You still don’t trust her.”

“Do you?” His tone was dangerous, the growls of a beast about to bite the hand that fed it. Dark eyes watched him in the unlit hallway. Ignis chewed on his answer carefully.

“Yes.”

_To a degree._


	5. Perception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having failed to best Rena in her assessment, Gladio is matched against her to further his training, then to determine a victor. Four weeks of intensive training is a lot of time to spend with someone.

Stones wall stood proud and rough, bathed in a thick honey sunrise. The arches cast archaic shadows that loomed over a small square of pale grit and dust as old as the catacombs below, the rough granite walls aged and withered, scarred by centuries of blades. The dawn crested the black tiled roof. It bathed rough, tanned fingers, joints thick and aching from a grip too tight for too long. The warmth took away some of the pain, but never the guilt.

Cor Leonis listened to everything, and simultaneously, no one. The traffic of the waking city, the sound of his own heartbeat and each breath that stirred the burning dust of the old headquarters. The Immortal watched every rising sun as if it would be his last. The soft glow washed over aging skin, smoothing the fine lines with a transient touch and the faint scent of the sea, of history and of walls he knew well, blunting his sharp expression.

For a moment.

Its edge was regained at the sound of the heavy oak doors creaking open, and being closed quietly, below his feet.

Broad shoulders rolled under the stormy grey fabric of a training hoodie. Gladiolus strode across the open space. Heavy boots crunched in the fine, sandy grit beneath them. He set his kit bag down by a wall and crouched to retrieve a water bottle from the depths of the heavy black holdall. Cracking it open, he drained a third before capping it and throwing it back in. Cor watched with pale eyes as he made his preparations.

Feeling a familiar gaze on him, Gladio turned, quickly spotted him and nodded to the marshal. Leonis returned the gesture and watched as the familial respect in amber eyes shrank away. He’d barely heard the door open and, from his vantage point above it, he couldn’t see without leaning over the edge in a fashion too undignified for a man of his character.

She stayed close to the walls, choosing a corner as she shrugged the light rucksack from her shoulders. It slouched against the stone. The leather of it matched her boots; scuffed and worn; tired. Bare shouldered in the vest she’d chosen for her uniform, the pale length of strong arms worked quickly to bind her hands in smoky grey linen.

The marshal’s eyes were sharp. He caught the clenching of a jaw before an insignia-clad cap was dumped in the holdall and the hoodie hauled off from the back of his neck. Gladio stood and stretched briefly, feeling the dull warmth of his morning run still fluid in his muscles.

“Morning,” she mumbled, voice quiet and smooth as it passed over the stretch of grit separating them.

Gladio ground his teeth briefly and grunted a reply. _Just get it done. Learn what you have to and get it done._ He cracked his knuckles and stretched his hands out a few times before standing to his full height and addressing the marshal in postured attention. She took a deep lungful of the aged air and stood an arm-length from his side.

Leonis observed his two troublesome pupils.

One trained to within an inch of his life, his every breath and heartbeat a practiced and refined repetition of the last. He’d spent years in the Crownsguard halls. He’d watched him grow, from a skinny boy with limbs longer than he knew, to a young man, powerful as he basked in his prime.

The other had slipped silently amongst the training ranks months before. Trapped in the outlands by circumstance, kept alive by no small amount of instinct and brought to the city by a misunderstanding, she was a wilder thing. One he’d decided to test.

Both were strong. Both were capable. Both were stubborn.

Neither had stood in these halls before, on the trampled rubble of centuries of soldiers before them. Pairs of dark eyes watched him as he spoke briefly.

“You two will fight until a clear victor is decided, I will observe and make said decision. We have three hours here this morning before Gladiolus,” he gestured to the young man. “Is to carry out his duties, I am expected to accompany his majesty, and your shift begins.”

Two voices, both low and deep, but one rasping and one smooth, replied. “Yes, sir.”

“If we don’t have a verdict by the end of this session, we’ll repeat the process tomorrow. And the next day. As long as it takes. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

A still silence poured in with the dawn. Stone dust fell from the old structure and glittered as it dancing to join its fallen brothers in the grit. The brief, shrill shadows of a flock of swift birds cut across the rising summer sun and raced over the rooftops, out of sight and earshot. All three stood perfectly still in a moment of tense meditation.

“Begin.”

A quiet burst of crystals put a familiar weight in his hand. She drew the sword from her assessment and shifted slowly on her feet, always watching him for any twitch that could give him away.

Gladio’s muscles worked of their own accord. They were conditioned by nearly a decade of hundreds of drills, etched further into his being than the ink that had meticulously blessed his skin with a reminder of why. He was experienced, trained for this. Each motion followed the next in a subconscious flow.

He struck first.

He met steel.

Turning the sword in his hand and balancing its hefty weight, he lunged again, carving through thin air before the high note of steel played again.

She met every last one of his blows but made none of her own. Focused entirely on defence, Rena worked quickly to shield her skin from a razor edge of formidable momentum. He came at her like a hurricane; fast and never once giving her a chance to attack.

Sweat was damp on his brow by the time he slowed. He left himself open on his left as he drew back to prepare another swing, but she didn’t strike. She shifted her weight between her feet, keeping her knees from locking and watched him. He did the same again, cutting through the air above her head to make her duck. Refusing to take the chance, she simply rose back up again when his sword was being readied for another strike.

Gladio wrestled, a deep voice resonating within his chest. _Have patience. She’ll lose hers._ The guiding hand of his own blood was in every drop of sweat, every inch of skin, seeping into him from every fusion of the ink with his being.

 _Ink_ was his element. His mind raced over thousands of yellowed pages in the citadel library. Sword skills were poetry. Each technique was a stanza he had committed to memory. The greater scale of battles were ballroom dances; find a partner in a group and mind your feet. War… War was just like life. Intention; reality; price.

Gladio knew everything entombed in those heavy leather bindings. She knew none of it, yet she remained.

He left himself open again, inviting her to strike, even turning his back. Hours passed, and she simply deflected or avoided his every attack. She just survived.

In a pause, he cast the sword back into the armiger and dug another bottle of water from his holdall. He drained it. The sound of crackling plastic grated against the walls; a modern convenience in a temple of older elements. A frown weighed heavy on his brow as he turned to look over his shoulder.

Crouched against a wall with her sword leaning beside her, she caught her breath with deep lungfuls of perfumed history, dry and cool in the early morning. When she opened her eyes, she was already looking at the upper level. The marshal brooded. His jaw clenched and stern expression was as still as the stone. He took a brief glance at his watch and then a deep breath.

He gave Gladiolus a pointed look as the young man stood up straight again, aurous eyes flicking between his superior and his opponent.

“Twenty minutes,” he informed, his voice deep and resonating deep within the granite. His cold gaze shifted to Rena. “You _will_ attack.”

She nodded in silence before standing again. Turning the sword in her hand with a weighing twist, Rena walked towards Gladio. Her quiet footsteps stopped four feet from his own as they met in the centre of the square. They circled each other restlessly. A quick burst put his weapon back in his hand. It was a reflection of him; dark, powerful and artistic in its function.

Gladio lurched towards her with a wide swing, the end of his sword inches from her stomach as he spun, readying the second strike. Rena ducked low. Arm hooked around his knee, she used his own momentum to put him off balance. He tripped away but stayed on his feet.

Then she struck.

Quick and purposeful, the smaller sword made no sense as it sliced through the air. There was no rhythm, no formality, in this dance. She was unpredictable enough to turn the odds. Gladio held up his weapon in defence as the onslaught continued, sharp steel meeting his and forcing the broad, dark span of the greatsword up under his neck. She held it there.

Flames stoked by the long awaited shred of aggression, Gladio’s bold features pulled into a snarl. He forced her blade away and put his foot behind hers.

Rena barely paused when she landed. Grit clung to sweat. Seeing the dark, narrow edge of the broadsword flashing dangerously above her, she rolled away, pushed herself up and hooked a foot around his ankle as she spun. Gladio went down with a heavy pound, winded by his own landing.

He made to sit up, already casting the broadsword back into his hand. Something tapped his chest lightly. Her sword point hovered below his sternum as a muted threat. Eyes locked from either end of the pointed steel; amber hues burned with challenge against a steadfast green. A smirk twisted onto his lips.

She felt a hand on her ankle before the world spun and rough grit bit through her training leggings. The dark edge of his blade hung heavy over the side of her neck. He loomed over her, keeping his distance to maintain his footing.

He began to nod. “Marshal?”

His eyes sought guidance and approval from under dark brows. Cor watched the two of them, as he had for hours now, and turned his decision over in his mind. Gladiolus had successfully pinned her, despite being taken down himself. He’d overcome the challenge. The pride of his house and history was as stark as the ink on his arms and he held a duty heavier than his sword well, true to his nature. As a Shield, he’d learned well and shown promise.

She was yet to be broken in. Even from his vantage point, he’d found it difficult to predict her movements until they were almost complete; Gods knew how Gladiolus had managed. Cor’s gaze caught dark eyes already finding weaknesses on her opponent; her next footholds in this climb. However, his newest recruit had hesitated and that would not stand.

Neither had been trying hard enough.

“That’s enough-.”

Gladiolus puffed his cheeks out a relieved breath, casting his sword back into the armiger with an idle wave of his hand.

“- for today.”

Both heads whipped back to him; pairs of dark brows lowered into frowns. He merely turned and walked away steadily, hiding as his expression fell troubled. Lone footsteps passed through the old halls.

Her ability to hide in plain sight had been his reason for choosing her, but he’d expected more of the young Shield.

* * *

“Oh my fucking-!”

“Just say the word.”

She struggled against his hold; his knee pinning her to the ground for the third time that morning. “…Fuck.”

“Wrong one,” Gladio panted. He frowned down at the back of her head. “You’ve got a filthy mouth, you know that?”

“No fucking shit.”

She tilted her head, eyeing the edge of his blade. It shone in the morning light, the meticulously sharpened edge holding a perfect reflection of the walls as they towered above them and the sunrise blossoming over the roof.

_His other arm._

A heavy knee pressing against her spine, she twisted and grabbed his elbow. In his attempt to pull away, he effectively freed her himself and met the grit, chest first. Hands by his chest to push himself up, the cool steel of her blade tapped between his shoulder blades.

“Break?”

He clenched his jaw reluctantly. The burning lungs and dust coated throat replied in a raspier tone than usual. “Yeah.”

At the sound of her footsteps crunching quietly away, he stood. The black holdall and its concealed flask of water beckoned from the edge of the square. An unseasonable heatwave had arrived at the end of the week and done nothing to improve the Marshal’s trialling attitude. He was as stern and determined as always; he would see them tempered.

The stone walls were baked, heat bouncing back from the western side and trapping them in an arena with no breeze. The shadows offered no relief. She tugged the navy rag from her back pocket and gave her brow a quick swipe. Skin turning to a heated pink, she crouched and dug briefly in her bag before pulling out a bottle, draining half of it.

“You really can’t handle the heat, can you?” he asked, voice smoothed over by a cool drink.

Rena turned over her shoulder. The young Shield was sitting against the wall, tanned, dampened by sweat and tugging a baseball cap onto his mop of dark hair, the sides freshly trimmed back. He’d broken the baited, but restful, silence assumed between rounds. It was pierced and seeping away slowly in the heat. She turned, crouched against her own stone corner and shook her head.

“Nah. Last time I was this warm, I was at Ravatogh.”

He frowned mid-sip. “The hell were you doing on the volcano?”

“Clearing out reapertails for the tourist season. Decent money. Not worth it.”

“Figures,” he mused, taking off his cap to spin it on his finger. Gladio revelled in the light breeze, tired eyes turning heavy. He glanced at her, mapping the faded violet scars on her arms. “You said you worked in Malmalam.”

Bottle raised to her lips, she paused, eyebrows raised. She nodded and swirled the water in her hand. “Twice. Wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why do it twice then?”

Rena smirked at the dirt. The grit had lain undisturbed for decades. Now it was landscaped, cast in sprays that marked moments of force and momentum. The last time anyone had fought here, Mors’ walls still stretched to the outer reaches of the kingdom. The temporary peace on their battlefield was cut by the sharp shadows of birds that screeched as they flew overhead, immediately catching Rena’s focus. As she let her gaze fall back into the pit, trailing over the dry plants that clung to neglected walls, the pale scars left by archaic weapons and finally to him, she shook her head.

“People to feed. Bills to pay.”

She followed her quiet words with a long drink, chugging the rest of the bottle effortlessly. He scoffed a laugh and hardened his expression.

“You drink too much.”

“I know,” she admitted, tucking the bottle back into the bag and trying to forget the smell of whiskey from the night before.

“I meant the water but that works too,” he cocked his head, taking a final sip before capping the bottle and burying it in the cool recesses of his holdall.

Mind still racing over everything he’d read and heard about the notorious thicket, Gladio stood and stretched the momentary stiffness of a few minutes rest from his limbs. The trees were supposed to be so thick there were no stars or moon; no light at night and very little during the day. Except for the phosphorescent mushrooms or the glowing eyes of beasts so isolated they knew no caution, let alone fear, of humans. The burning heat of the morning stoked the fires in his mind, casting sparks. Each fizzled out and left him in the darkness, caged by close branches and surrounded.

When he summoned his sword, the glint of the fine steel threw his mind back to a day almost as hot as this. To rough rock walls worn smooth by centuries of gales and the foul breath of a behemoth bearing down on him. Then the bright flash of steel, the bitter scent of blood and the beast turning away, distracted.

Amber eyes watched Rena carefully. She moved with the same power as then, but more balance. Months of training had straightened her back and taught her to hold her head up. She was only doing all this for one reason. _People to feed._

But venturing into Malmalam, likely alone, _twice_ was more than putting food on the table.

“What are you afraid of?”

Packing her bottle away into the old leather rucksack, she paused, already quiet movements went silent. She twisted her torso, fixing her gaze on him. “What?”

“What,” he breathed in, letting the rest of his words fall during his exhale like autumn leaves. “Are you afraid of?”

“Loads of shit. Heights. The dark. The things _in_ the dark, the-.”

“No. What do you _fear?”_

He waited on his side of the centre, a spot marked by grit trampled to a smooth base. Rena stood up straight and turned, tightening her bun as she walked towards the centre. She stopped a few feet from him, skin prickling and beginning to burn again in the sun. Her eyes didn’t meet his until she gave her answer in a simple, calm statement.

“Consequences.”

She nodded a little afterwards, eyes dropping from his in the silence. After expecting a scoff, a bark of laughter, or just to be brushed off with another one of his growls, she was met by quiet.

“Why?”

“Because they’re everywhere.”

He shook his head and frowned. “Then what’s the point? You can’t avoid ‘em if they’re everywhere.”

“No,” she breathed. “But I can choose which ones I deal with. Sometimes.”

They stood across from each other, both holding weapons but neither tensed to use them. Both sets of broad shoulders were loose, each bearing the weight of different worlds. Gladio could hear his chains rattle.

“What about you?”

Still considering the fragility of the cryptic answer, a single thick eyebrow shot up. He pouted and shook his head.

“Nothing.”

“So… everything?”

He frowned deeply and opened his mouth to offer rasher words. “Did you even hear me?”

“Yeah, but I see the look on your face every time the prince is around. It’s subtle, but it’s there.”

Watched by an impassive set of green eyes, he locked his focus on hers, ready to start another argument. It was analytical, calculating, _clever._ The sun lightened her shade until it almost matched another he knew well, and trusted. These eyes didn’t shelter, focused, behind glass. They were bare and all the sharper for it. Wild animals can’t afford to miss details.

“What is?” he growled, his gritted teeth putting an edge to his words.

“You fear failing.”

“Shields don’t fail.”

Rena didn’t miss a beat. “ _People_ do. It’s just-.”

_“Shields. Don’t. Fail.”_

For all his certainty in his words, he didn’t meet her eyes until after they’d slipped into the burning air and been stolen by the darting birds overhead. His ears rang with the rattling of heavy chains. Needing a distraction, he swivelled his sword into two hands. She nodded and took her ready stance. The thin, somewhat battered, Citadel steel of her sword was raised and ready.

He caught a glimpse of the marshal as he returned to his perch in the gallery. Watchful ice refused to melt in the late summer sun, and he was watching their every move.

_You just have to prove it._

_Shields don’t fail._

He took his first swing. She dodged backwards, ducked beneath the second and slipped past him. Steel tapped the side of his back before he turned and struck again. He was stopped. Metal sang clear and high in the pit as they continued, driving themselves and each other until they were slick with sweat and clawing hot air into lungs it only seemed to burn.

No matter how many times his blade clattered against hers, their boots ripped along the grit or they thudded to the ground, not even the weighty rhythm of his own chains could drown it out.

_You’re not just ‘people’._

_You can never be just ‘people’._

_People can fail._

_Shields can’t._

* * *

Iced orange and the thick cherry syrup that had lingered enticingly at the bottom of the cold, water-beaded glass were fresh and succulent on her tongue.

Still, the bittersweet tang of her first paycheck was in the back of her throat. After stowing away enough for two months of rent, a month’s bills and sending the majority home, Rena found herself with an excess for the first time and perfectly positioned in a city full of opportunities.

The opportunity presented to her on this particular night was a club. The air was heavy with too many scents; over-sweet perfume, cheap aftershave, sweat, alcohol, and something else she couldn’t recognise as anything other than the sticky heat of a summer evening.

“So wait, what did he do?”

“I don’t know, man, he just fucked off then turned up an hour and a half later,” she shook her head, and with it, freshly washed curls already puffed out of finer definition by the humidity. “You don’t fuckin’ ask the marshal where he’s going. He could’ve been for a shit and a coffee, for all I know.”

“Gladio coulda asked him,” Prompto pouted, stacking his elbows on the smooth, sticky bar top and cupping his chin in his hands. The blond was already flushed from a blend of heat and alcohol, watching her with blown pupils in the pulsing lights.

“He could, but he didn’t. Too busy asking fuckin’ questions.”

“Wait, what?! He actually _talked_ to you?”

Mid-sip, Rena nodded. She stuck out her tongue as she drained the glass, taking a moment to focus and put it back on the bar quietly. “Yeah, and- fuck me, that’s sweet- it was fuckin’ awkward.”

He giggled before leaning on the counter to wave down the bartender. Turning on her stool, she leant her elbows back on the bar and watched the bodies dance in flashing green, blue, red, purple and green again. The steady beat of the club took hold, making her knee bounce in time.

“What can I getcha?”

A lack of musical lilt from beside her gathered her attention. She swung around to a gaping Prompto, a deep rouge blush spreading down his neck. Shaking her head and turning further, Rena came face to face with the young bartender. She was petite, dressed in the deep grape of the club’s theme and smiled sweetly. Inky almond eyes blinked curiously as her smile pressed dimples into caramel cheeks.

Rena shook her head briefly and pointed lightly to Prompto.

“He’ll take another Galdin sunrise and,” she trailed off, clicking her tongue. “Yeah, I’ll just take the tequila. On the rocks, please.”

“Comin’ right up,” her tuneful voice carried over the club beats. Prompto whimpered meltingly at her side. Rena tapped the bar again.

“Sorry, can you make that a double please?” She smiled apologetically at the bartender before leaning back, resting her arms on the cool surface of the counter. “You’re right, she’s pretty.”

“Holy shit.”

“I wouldn’t go that far but- thank you,” Rena interrupted herself to give the woman a relieved smile and pay for the drinks.

“No… _Holy shit.”_

She flinched lightly when he tapped her shoulder. He pointed a pale finger past her. Thumb stroking the condensation from her glass she turned and followed his wide-eyed stare.

“Oh fuck.” She rolled her eyes, sweeping dark curls back with a long hand as she hunched over her drink.

The iced rattled crisply as she drained the glass and put it back on the bar, still careful to touch one side down first before letting it sit. Her hand left her hair, retreating back down to rub her temples. When the bartender passed again, her dark eyes widened at the already empty glass Rena held up.

“Can I have another one please?”

The young woman laughed briefly. “Rough week, huh?”

“You could say that,” Rena shook her head, sweeping the hair back from her face again.

“I’m gonna go say hi. You want me to say hi for you? I’ll say hi for you.”

“Prom,” she groaned, looking at the ceiling before she brought her focus crashing down on the bouncing blond, his lip trapped between his teeth in excitement. “Don’t say I’m here, please. They don’t need to-.”

“They _kinda_ already do,” he squeaked, using the round shape of his final vowel to meet his straw for another sip of the sweet glass of sunshine. She frowned but refused to turn away from him. _Six knows you’ll see some fucker you’re sick of seeing._

“How?”

“Iggy saw you on the way in, he waved,” Prompto reported, returning to deep draws of his drink, occasionally humming at the sour citrus cooling his tongue.

“Ah, _fuck!”_ she cursed, leaning her head back to stare at the high ceiling. At the sound of a glass landing in front of her, she fished in her back pocket for another bill and brought her head back down with too much speed to stay focused. “Thank you.”

“No problem, sweetie.”

Rena grimaced lightly at the petname and whispered a quiet ‘nope’ to herself before raising the glass to her lips again. The sour tequila burned at her nose.

“Hey.”

She turned her head. Prompto was visibly bouncing on his stool, hands running through chaotically styled hair. He raised his brows at her and the cosmic blue of his eyes visibly sparked as he spoke, only just loud enough above the music.

“You gonna come say hi?”

Rena stayed deadpan, but Prompto’s fizzing electricity didn’t leave him as he gave a pursed smile. She shook her head and started to rant quietly as she raised the glass to her lips.

“It had to be Ignis, didn’t it? Anyone else and I could’ve ignored them, but no. Had to be Ignis, fuckin’ -mmnph,” she trailed, dousing her words in tequila. The glass landed back on the counter with a thwack.

“Yes!” he threw himself from his stool, dipping clumsily when he landed. Returned to his full height he grinned. “Come on! Let’s go say _hiiiii!”_

“Be there in a minute, I gotta- yeah,” she shook her head, watching the blond bound away through the club. She shook her head and cursed the curls that fell down over her eyes, brushing them back and rubbing at her eyes.

“Another tequila?”

The sweet voice had Rena’s hand swinging away from her eyes, as if it were hinged to her temple.

“Can I get a whiskey this time? Secullam. Nice and strong.”

“Double on the rocks?” The bartender tilted her head, a keen grin spreading across her rosy lips. Rena shook her head before nodding.

“You know me so well.”

She paid for the drink and took a mouthful, swirling the cool, smooth liquor until it burned against the roof of her mouth. It slipped down her throat at a crawl, what could’ve been silk turned to fire by her own masochistic patience. She took the glass with her and dodged through the bodies she was too drunk to learn the faces of. Rena made it to the edge of the dancefloor before searching the heads for a shock of pale hair or a lean arm held up as he danced.

During a pause between songs, a loud giggle bubbling from the upper level of the club caught her by the ear. She puffed out a breath and shook her head, jogging up the galvanised spiral staircase that changed colour every second.

The booths lining the upper level were a smooth black vinyl around white tables. Looking down onto the dancefloor and the adjacent bar, the music was fractionally quieter here. Sipping her whiskey, she was made to feel out of place by the gaggle of young women that passed her. The tallest was an inch or so shorter than her, even in heels. Hair straightened or styled to precise fashions, they wore bright short dresses and skirts over tanned skin. Lips were rouged, lashes teased and thickened by mascara. They were works of art.

By contrast, Rena wore her hair loose and messy. The black skinny jeans and navy camisole were the most she could tolerate in public during a heatwave. Still sipping, she considered her options. Returning to the bar for another round before she faced the inevitable was a likely course of action, judging by how little whiskey was left in the glass. Alternatively, she could leave and apologise to Prompto later when the blond rocked up at three in the morning and talked his heart out about anything in the world in some cathartic spilling, but never about himself.

Shaking her head, the whiskey pulled at her legs and made her prowl silently around the upper level, edging past smirking couples and loud groups. She had the bar back in her sights, watching the young woman from earlier as she served another patron.

“Hey! Rena! Woohoo! We’re here, c’mon!”

She steeled herself and turned towards the bright voice. Prompto was still bouncing in his seat, intoxicated by both alcohol and sugar. He shuffled along the booth seat and patted the patch next to him with an encouraging grin. Her gaze passed over the rest of the table as she came closer.

The prince, dressed in a grey t-shirt over his slacks, was halfway through a tall glass of something blue when his eyes widened. He set the drink down and wiped the corner of his mouth on his wrist, breaking a small smile at her. She nodded in greeting and cast her eyes to the next.

A wry smile twisted onto pale lips. Hair styled and eyes keen, his smooth skin glowed in the changing hues of the club lights. The top few buttons of his deep purple shirt were left undone in a casual mark. Ignis raised his small glass and clinked it gently against hers as she took a seat at the booth.

“Good evening,” he drawled. He took a sip of his own iced drink and set the glass on the table. “How are we?”

“Well, I’m… pretty well. _And_ I’ve had a few of these,” she swirled her whiskey, feeling the ice beat against the sides of the glass and letting the scent waft upwards. “So, I’m alright. How are you?”

“I’m fine, for now. This isn’t what I had _planned_ for the evening-.”

“It’s just a few drinks on the town, Specs.”

“- but providing it doesn’t go too far,” he shook his head as Noctis finished his first drink of the night. “It should be enjoyable.”

“Gin?” she asked, pointing to his glass. He breathed a gentle sigh.

“Regrettably no. I’m designated driver for this evening, no matter how impromptu it may be.”

“Didn’t think you’d be here.”

The low rasp gathered the attention of the table. He watched with dark eyes, daring her to snap again. Whiskey in hand, she was armed and ready.

“Me neither,” she breathed, finishing her glass with a quick swig.

He huffed a breath that could have been a laugh through his nose and nursed a beer his hand dwarfed.

“You want another one of those? Second round’s on me,” Prompto grinned, chin propped up by his hands again as he blinked wide cornflower eyes at her.

“You’re determined to get shitfaced tonight, aren’t you?”

“A little.” He tilted his head with a bitten lip. “A guy’s gotta have some fun.”

Wiggling his eyebrows, all she could do was roll her eyes and stand to let him out of the booth. He tripped on the way out but saved himself from the fall, standing briefly to salute the rest of them.

“I don’t mean to pry, but-.”

“Why’s Blondie trying to blow his liver out?” Gladio finished, taking a swig before parting from his bottle with a low pop.

Noctis and Rena spoke in unison. “Rough week.”

The two frowned at each other briefly before toasting with empty glasses.

“He ain’t the only one,” Gladio muttered to himself, letting his low voice drown in the club’s pounding beats.

“Pff, you can fuckin say that again.”

His brows lowered at her. “How many have you had?”

“Not enough,” she shook her head, tipping an ice cube into her mouth and squeezing it between her teeth until it squeaked and crunched.

“Hey, hey, hey! Woah! Careful there! I-I’m fragile, ‘kay?”

The bubbling laugh from behind them had them turning in their seats. Prompto, a tray of precariously balanced drinks in his hand, spun away from the group of women that had passed Rena earlier. She’d failed to notice one was wearing a plastic tiara and veil. Blushing deeply and unsteady on his feet, the blond somehow made it to the table and set the tray down with a thud that made them wince.

He stayed silent, mouth forming around unsaid words.

“You okay there, Prompto?” Noct asked, watching his friend with half-lidded eyes. Heavy and drowsy from a long night, the little alcohol that hit his system was already making sleep an appealing option. He carried on, sipping yet another blue cocktail, safe in the knowledge that he would make it home to his bed, if Ignis had anything to do with it.

“Guys! Guys-guys! Did you see the way she looked at me?”

“Which one, Blondie?”

“Yeah, there’s,” Rena leant over the back of the seat, counting the bachelorette party. Some held phones, others drinks, and one was holding a familiar belt. “Eight.”

“There’s more than one?! Oh man, I thought just had a lot to drink…”

He ran a careless hand through his hair, picking up yet another bright cocktail in the other. As he swayed restlessly on the spot, refusing to sit as he was sent winks and coy grins from the group of women, his pants shifted down slightly. Rena frowned and gave a quick glance to Ignis. The bright rectangle of the advisor’s phone was reflected in his lenses as he scrolled through endless fine print. By the time she passed to darker eyes, they were already watching as Prompto’s pants slipped further down over his slender hips. Gladio switched his focus to her as the blonds monologue reached a crescendo.

“…you think I’ve got a chance? With any of ‘em?”

Pale brows pinched together and worrying his bottom lip, the darker eyes at the table locked on him. Prompto dreaded the words waiting in Gladio’s mouth. They were being sharpened and serrated with every millimetre his lips parted.

A smoother voice beat him to it. “Oh yeah, you’re quite the fuckin’ panty dropper.”

She sipped her fresh whiskey and gave him an encouraging nod.

His eyes brightened. “Really?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Go get ‘em, killer,” Gladio rasped, smirking as he took another sip.

Nodding, Prompto puffed himself up and got roughly six feet from the table before his pants hit the floor. Ignis choked on his water. He kept walking, only noticing their absence when his already drunken steps were hindered and a cool breeze passed between his slender thighs.

It was the rare but recognisable sound of Noctis’ laughter that fully alerted Prompto. He let out a brief yelp, darting down to clothe himself again. Made clumsy by the blend of alcohol and pant legs around his shoes, he stumbled before breaking into a run, heading for the stairs. The bachelorette group erupted into laughter, one staunchly defending him because ‘he was cute’.

Breaking into a rough snort, Gladio shook his head and moved his beer around on the table, playing with the ring of water it had left there.

“’Panty dropper’? Really?”

She turned back to the table, a glint sparking in dark eyes. “I never said it had to be someone else’s pants.”

The hint of a smirk played at her mouth before she hid it behind a mouthful of whiskey. He shook his head and snorted again as he pulled the fresh beer to his lips. The four sat in quiet observation of livelier party-goers. The pounding rhythm buzzed in their chests, lyrics blurred by the marvels of tropical beats. The sounds were cool and bright, nothing like the earthy strings that played whenever the hunter’s gathered or the upbeat pop blaring from Lestallum’s old radio sets whenever new music somehow breached the walls.

A loud slurping earned frowns as Noctis finished his second drink. He looked up with uncharacteristically wide blue eyes as he drained the glass of its bright contents. Ignis shook his head and sipped delicately at his water. A sweet beer not doing enough for him, the Shield found himself craving something stronger, just to let go.

_Not until he’s home and safe._

A conditioned mind ran over the guiding principles that may as well have been carved into his bones and inlaid with steel. _Above all, protect. If you can do anything, protect. If you can’t, protect anyway._ A sharp click of a glass against the smooth tabletop sent ripples through his focus.

“Ah, fuck. Well, I’m gonna go get him before he does something stupid,” she said flatly, sidling out of the booth.

Rena walked away, movements loosened by fatigue and alcohol. She’d barely reached the stairs when he shook his head. They were the same movements that she took in the square; instinctual and fluid to give her as many options as possible in terms of direction and speed. How she’d managed to get him to strike between his legs and almost sever his own thigh, he had no idea. She didn’t have any patterns, any rhythms. He was trying to learn something that didn’t exist.

Music pounding against her ears, Rena spied a flash of blond hair sticking out from between slender fingers. Hissing an inhale, she sidled towards the bar and perched on the stool next to him.

“Oh, hey, you’re back.”

“Yep. Same again, please,” she nodded, handing over enough for yet another whiskey. Leaning to catch his focus as he held his head in his hands, she spoke. “Hey. C’mon, it’s done now.”

Prompto’s head shot up with a deep breath as he rushed his words out until he was breathless.

“Oh, gods! It keeps happening again and again and I- I-! I can’t, oh nooooo! Do you think they saw? I think they saw! I really didn’t need them to see! Oh gods…”

“Prom.”

He looked up with saucers for eyes and pale lips trembling in a small pout; mortified.

“They didn’t see anything,” she shook her head, accepting the fresh drink with a nod. “Your little boxers stayed up the whole time so, unless you were majorly cracking a boner-.”

“I don’t think I was.”

“There you go then. They didn’t see anything.”

She knocked her glass against his briefly and raised an eyebrow. Prompto drained the last two thirds of his cocktail without the straw, preferring to gulp it. He set it down and took another deep breath, preparing the next stage of his verbal cleansing when his eyes widened. The DJ had flawlessly stitched the previous song to the next.

“Oh my gods, I love this song,” he exclaimed, lean shoulders already keeping to the beat.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Prompto danced in his seat. He stopped with an abrupt gasp. “We. Should. Dance.”

Half-choking on her whiskey, she swallowed with a cough and stared at the blond. “What?”

“Yeah! C’mon! It’ll be fun! Let’s goooooo!”

He pointed finger guns at her before backing away to the dancefloor, eyebrows wiggling the whole time. Rena shook her head, finished her whiskey in one fell swig and followed him into the fluid labyrinth of revelry. The bright lights pulsed and cast them all in half a dozen colours, making stray and empty glasses flash.

Half-blinding by a bright blue light, Gladio winced and sat back in the booth with a huff. Nursing his fourth drink, Noctis was already beginning to slump forwards as he switched between watching the other patrons passing by and staring at the bright screen of his phone.

Ignis leant back against the smooth vinyl, crossed his legs elegantly and took another poised sip of his water. Pale eyes fixed on an old friend nursing a beer.

“Something the matter?”

The fingertips tracing the label of the bottle stopped abruptly, fiery eyes already burning into Ignis’ refined features. “Tired.”

“Ah, of course. Early mornings-.”

“Iggy-.”

The advisor shook his head as he talked, nursing the smooth glass in his hand with practiced care. “You can put a stop to it, Gladio, if it frustrates you that much.”

“Don’t,” he warned simply, widening his eyes as he continued. “Don’t. I don’t wanna hear it.”

“That’s the problem. You’re deafening yourself to it. Do you see her techniques when she fights? Are you even looking?”

Gladio slammed his bottle on the table, having drained it ten minutes before. Repeatedly clenching his jaw, he locked a fierce gaze on a calculating stare. Ignis was already unimpressed.

“I tried, okay? But- she doesn’t make any damn sense. She’s all over the place and nowhere at the same time. She’s got no idea how to fight and somehow she-.”

Ignis leant forwards with enough speed to startle Noctis from his dozing. His glass still met the table with a light tap, but there was an edge in his eyes.

“She’s only ever fought animals, Gladio. You’re right, she has no idea how to fight. But she knows how to survive and how to kill, for her those are intertwined; one and the same. The marshal is asking her to pare them apart; to survive without killing you. And perhaps, there is the slightest chance, you might learn something from her in the process.”

“Why do you always defend her? Huh? What the hell has she ever done for you?”

His hand tightened around his glass. The chill from the ice sent knives through the glove, into the newer skin of Ignis’ palm. As he loosened, the sensation dulled to a soothing cool presence that his mind read as a shade of damp moss. He locked onto ferocious eyes with a frosted edge in the soft green of his own hues.

“She’s _tried._ You can’t ask more of a person.”

Gladio opened his mouth to offer argument, reasoning, perspective. Anything to make him understand. Thinking better of it, the Shield slumped back with a clenched jaw and scratched his stubble absently. When he finally parted his lips again, the telling inhale immediately grasping Ignis’ attention, he spoke in a tone less heated.

“Sorry. Just getting sick of it,” he paused, watching green eyes lose their blades and turn back into softer grasses. “I’m trying, Iggy. Can’t win, though.”

Ignis frowned softly, sharp intellect turned to inquisitive endeavours.

“Marshal knows when we’re not trying, and how even it is when we do. He’s been reporting back to dad and-.”

“You haven’t heard the end of it.”

Gladio shook his head, his gaze dropping to the drowsy prince at Ignis’ side.

“No,” he said softly, barely above a whisper.

His father’s concerns had been readily voiced in subtle ways. The blue eyes lingered on the back of his neck, silently disapproving of every moment Gladio spent too deep in thought. They never showed him that worry; only gave him a few encouraging words and sent him on his way. In the past year, those eyes had shifted from forget-me-nots to a colder, crystalline blue. Afforded more childhood than Ignis or Noctis, Gladio had heard the silent message loud and clear.

_Time to start being a man._

“Everything settles in the end,” Ignis reassured. He nodded softly with his next words. “You’ll be alright.”

“Question, Iggy.”

A slow blink from the advisor confirmed his permission. Gladio took a lungful of warm, scented club air and watched the smooth features carefully for their reaction.

“Which one of us d’you think’ll win?”

Perfectly still, Ignis’ face did nothing but reinforce his words.

“In all honesty, I don’t know. I think each of you _could_ , but who _will…_ You’re both as stubborn as each other, in different ways.”

Gladio raised an eyebrow, eager for clarity. It was a rare and addicting concept, as of late, and one he relied on Ignis to provide.

“ _You_ are stubborn. Decisive. Unless you let them, no one can stop you. Rena is just as stubborn, but she can’t choose a target. No one can _force_ her. Don’t be fooled; both are equally powerful traits, only-.”

“Different directions.”

A small, tired smile spread on Ignis face. “It’s nice to see you again.”

“Aw, c’mon. I wasn’t being that much of an asshole, was I?” A soft frown fell on thick brows, tilting his head as the advisor considered his answer.

“No, but you’ve been getting fairly pent up. I haven’t seen you so stressed since-.”

Noctis fell against his friend with a soft thump. Dark lashes fused shut, curtained behind darker hair as pale lips fell open. Ignis didn’t even turn to look. He looked absently at the table and breathed a gentle sigh. A soft snort left Gladio as slender, gloved hands lifted the water to his mouth once more and drained it. Ignis straightened up, despite the weight of the prince against his side, and inhaled the few fine grains of composure he could string together in the humid air.

“Well. I’d best get him home. He’s got a long day tomorrow and Six knows getting him up in the morning will be… eventful.”

Gladio smirked before cocking his head. _He won’t be the only one._

“…and _you,”_ Ignis gave him a pointed look. He read the finely-sculptured face with calmer brown eyes. “would you like a lift home now, or later? The earliest I could be back is,” he paused to check his watch. “Under an hour, _if_ he’s sober enough to resist pressing all the buttons in the elevator this time.”

Noctis, limp in sleep, flopped forwards, head landing on the table with a dull thud.

“Good luck with that,” he smiled crookedly.

Ignis glared at the ceiling before peeling the unconscious prince from the booth and putting an arm around his back to hold him up. His feet dragged lightly on the floor, occasionally twitching, or a soft groan leaving his open mouth. Gladio began to shuffle from the booth.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got him. Stay a little longer and enjoy yourself, for Shiva’s sake,” Ignis ordered softly. The sensible edge in his eyes and arched eyebrow made Gladio growl under his breath and sit back down with a thump. Ignis began to half-carry his lolling friend away but called back over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. _Use the time_ , Gladio.”

Gladio shook his head and settled back in the booth, crossing his feet under the table. His eyes landed on the mess of empty glasses on the table. Cheeks puffed at nothing to do, he leant forwards and stacked the various glasses as best he could, piling them into the tray for the poor soul that would be sent round to collect them. In doing this, he found a packet of roasted peanuts and shrugged. He settled into a simple game; balancing a nut on his thumbnail, flicking it into the air and catching it in his mouth. After the first few repetitions, he had it down to a tedious art. It was better than nothing.

A shape halting at the booth appeared mid-toss. Expecting to give up the booth for another party, he caught the nut and crunched it between his teeth.

She was standing there, breaths steady through parted lips as she quickly took in the scene. The frizz of a humid night caught the glow of the changing lights, softening the bright colours into a haze. Rena gestured lightly to the empty space.

“Gone home?”

Gladio nodded and caught another peanut.

“Ah fuck… Shit, can you come dance?”

The newly airborne nut landed on his cheek. He frowned incredulously at her. “What?”

She clenched her jaw and swayed from side to side on her feet, shaking her head to wrestle the words out again.

“Can you come dance so this guy fucks off?”

“Just tell him to,” Gladio shrugged. He positioned another peanut and muttered to himself. “You’re good at the whole swearing thing.”

“I did and he’s not, and I’m kind of-.”

“Then make him.”

She paused, and for a split second her eyes widened, a frustrated frown gathering her brow. Whiskey had made her expression fluid and he was still sober enough to read. His own eyes scanned the table before looking up and snagging on her confliction, interest piqued by the sudden display of her thoughts.

“I don’t want to hit him.”

For a brief moment, she looked her age; barely finished being a child despite having stopped long ago. Gladio shook his head in disbelief and scoffed lightly before he spoke again, an eyebrow raised at her in question.

“So you’re asking me to dance?” He let out a quiet laugh. “Sheesh, at least buy me a-.”

The fresh glass of iced whiskey that had lingered in her loose grip was all but thrown onto the table, landing a foot away from his hand as she leant into the booth. Expressions tamed back again, she watched his features for the finest of twitches.

After the initial surprise and momentary defensive aggression, his eyes had flickered down to the glass of stronger liquor that promised to cut his ties to reality, even if only for a while. Ever watchful, he brought his gaze back up and locked on the single eye her hair left uncovered.

“You don’t want it?”

“I drink too much,” she spoke immediately, barely waiting for him to finish.

Rena nodded a little and pushed the glass towards him before standing clear of the table. She watched him with the same eyes she used to spar; observant, sharp, never anticipating his movements but catching them quickly enough to work against him. After a final scan of his still, tired features, she backed away from the table and walked.

Faced with the choice of sitting at the booth until Ignis returned, probably with a coffee in hand, or cracking a few knuckles towards Rena’s would-be suitor-turned-victim, he turned both options over in his mind. He glared at the full glass. The ice inside continued to spin from the momentum she’d presented it with, solid purity bathing in a more sinful nectar. As the music of the club deafened him, he frowned and tried to sip away the voices in his head.

_Don’t worry._

_Use the time._

_I don’t want to hit him._

He heard it again, but in another tongue.

_I don’t want to hit him._

His eyes flew open, glaring at one of the coloured spotlights. It threw him down into subconscious memory, to years before, to a voice rougher than his own, the sound of broken glass and the quick knife threatening to blind him. Gladio winced, feeling the wound burn with alcohol and his cheek soak with blood all over again. He could hear the words he’d left unspoken, and the oath he’d taken armour them.

_I don’t want to hit him._

He took the final swig of the whiskey and set the glass down. The bright clink of one ice cube against the next and he was thrown off again, too fatigued to resist the flashbacks.

The sun shone bright and seeped into his skin, deepening his tan with every moment. It glinted along the edges of swords. His nose burned with blank heat and aged grit. Unreadable eyes opposed his own and refused to do anything but defend their owner. He heard it again, hidden by the sharp screeches of swift birds.

_I don’t want to hit him._

Gladio stared at the stack of glasses that would’ve loosened anyone with their intoxicating contents. He took a deep breath and let the slow burn of whiskey in his throat do his thinking for him. It did nothing but give him the voices of others.

_No one can force her._

_No one can stop you._

“Damn it.”

He left the booth and made for the spiral staircase, jogging down it and stepping aside for those who were on their way up. He reached the bottom step before someone stood in his way.

“Here,” she said, handing him another glass of whiskey. “It’s that Leiden shit you like.”

He looked at the glass, brows lowered at first, before taking it and raising it to his mouth. Gladio paused.

“Hey.”

She turned her head towards him. Nodding once, he held his drink out to hers. The low rasp of his voice was barely audible over the music.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

The solid clink of glass was the hammer to the steel. He took his first sip of the dry, burning whiskey that so much reflected its region while Rena threw back the smoky, storming complex of Cleigne’s finest grain made into ambrosia. When he looked up from his glass, she’d vanished.

He shook his head and took the rest of his glass in one infernal mouthful, feeling it strip and tear at his cheeks. Gladio let out a satisfied breath, breathing fire in the scent of whiskey and revelling in it as it stung every rasp in his throat. He ventured into the fray.

Height had its advantages. A few inches clear of the tallest patrons in the club, no matter how high some of them jumped, he found the mess of curls that changed hue with every flashing light within the minute. Getting to her was a different story. He dodged bodies much smaller than his own, squeezing his shoulders together in an attempt to slip through the pulsing crowd of the dancefloor. She was only revealed in snapshots; whenever the lights went dark she’d move again and reappear in the same spot but lost at another point in rhythm. Once within ten feet, he prowled closer.

Mercifully arriving at a momentary lull between songs, he pressed a knuckle against her back in warning. She flinched lightly, before catching a glimpse of him over her shoulder. As the next song began, he barely had to lean down to speak to her.

“Where is he?”

“ _They_ , now” she corrected, immediately taken with the new rhythm. He glanced up and spotted four young men with lascivious eyes and inebriated clumsiness.

_Let’s play, guys._

In a pulsing crowd of other scents, whiskey played between the two of them. It had set fire to her thoughts an hour before and was beginning to singe his. The knuckle that had pressed against her spine became a hand. Keeping his body an inch away from her back, his hands ghosted over her hips and she played between them.

Crashing drumbeats that drowned out her own pulse were her ruling force. He glanced down to see a drunk smile gracing her. Breathing liquor flames and letting it burn the last of his thoughts, his hands took a firmer hold, moving her as much as she moved him. Her right side concealed by a mess of wild curls; he loomed over the left. A smirk pulled onto his lips.

In a rasher moment, his chest pressed against her. She arched back against him as his hips began to follow hers. She was endless curves, ever changing and never stopping. Rena was getting drunk all over again; on rhythm, on sweat, on liquor and cologne. His hand slipped, crawling down over her hip to steer the top of her thigh. A dark green eye flicked to its corner, giving a warning glare that quickly burned away into closed eyes and another broad smile that was as intoxicating as it was intoxicated.

They caged each other. The hand that had wandered was held in place by her own subtle grasp at his wrist. Power set loose by drink was the weapon shared. His lips loomed by her ear, heated breath flooding over the bared skin of her neck, pooling at her collarbone before turning to vapour and carrying the burn of whiskey up to them again.

He felt her pull at his wrist. Slipping his hand away, he had to suppress raised eyebrows when she kept a hold on it, holding his wrist above her head. The warmth of her left him, threatening to steal the rhythm he’d begun to cling to. Serpentine hips kept time, sinking low before effortlessly rising again. It was a move that belonged somewhere far more private, and with someone far more familiar. His smirk grew into a wolfish grin.

Close in their heights again, his mouth lingered by her temple, face half hidden behind her head. Hands took hold at her hips before one chased to her waist. She buried one of her own in her hair, gathering it to one side and losing pale fingers in the curls. Her other hand ghosted over his forearm, barely tightening its grip when he slipped a thumb into her jeans.

Gladio took another glance. The drunk grin remained as she watched him from the corner of her eye. Heady beats pounded in their chests and bass made their blood shake. The already dark mess of her hair, pulled to the side, cast bold lines over her neck, held there by the sweat of hours in heat and motion.

Possessive whiskey eyes cut into the crestfallen would-be’s. The faint scar of her left eyebrow was echoed by his bolder line. Moving in unison, they were a twisted chimera; the threatening amber of one and the malicious emerald of the other.

The young men grumbled as they plodded away.

The song ended and began to fuse into the next. Rena let out two beats of laughter that drowned in the throbbing music. She took a step away from Gladio, only for him to hold onto her wrist. Turning back, she was met by a wide smile and pinched brows.

“Victory dance?!” he shouted over the chorus. She grinned and shook her head.

“Fuck yeah!”

As her words fell into laughter, Gladio caught himself joining her. He was too drunk to care, finally drowning out the chains. Face to face, they danced to a faster rhythm. As the beats reached a crescendo, one of his hands left her waist, taking a loose hold of her wrist. She followed him, reaching for the ceiling and never stopping. Gladio’s other hand tightened at her side, reminded of the strength of her with every move she made. Catching sight of the drunk grin again, he couldn’t help but feel his own push at his lips.

Something bright caught her eye. Turning her head away, she saw the full sight. Prompto, flushed a deep pink that remained through every changing light, had bunches of glowing bands around his neck and wrists. He moved frantically, pulling feverish body rolls with a lithe form. The smiling bottom lip trapped between his teeth was the final straw as he danced closer to them, spinning as he closed the gap.

Shaking with laughter, Rena creased up at the young blond. At first confused, Gladio looked at her, before spotting the swirling neon that was Prompto. He froze for a moment. When the young blond shot him a wink and swivelled again, Gladio threw his head back and laughed freely.

“OKAY! HOW YA DOING?”

With Rena still laughing at his bright entrance, Gladio answered. “Pretty good!”

“THAT SUCKS CAUSE MAMMA’S HERE TO PICK US UP.”

“What?!” Rena pulled her focus from the floor and back to Prompto, drunken grin faded.

Still dancing, Prompto pointed past the bar, incorporating it flawlessly into his continued routine. The two of them stepped apart and peered over the other heads.

Ignis was standing by a pillar, waiting patiently in an atmosphere far more inebriated than he had been in a long time. Once he locked eyes with Gladio, the two exchanged nods.

“Okay, bedtime,” he reported, loud enough to be heard over the music.

Prompto began to dance away, taking a leap and then shimmying until he left the dancefloor. Rena and Gladio followed in his luminous wake, both snorting into laughter when the blond almost knocked a drink from someone’s hand but recovered smoothly with a nervous grin on his face. Sighing deeply, Gladio slung a heavy arm over her shoulders as they worked their way through the walls of bodies on the dancefloor.

They traded laced heat and humidity for a fresher, less concentrated version outside as the stream of thick scents in the club met the outside world like a river meets the sea. With beats still making his head pound and shaking the blood in his veins, Gladio scanned the street.

“Where the hell did he park...?”

A quiet, musical hum left the smaller body to shi side, before she tensed with the revelation and almost barked. “Ah- found it.”

“Where?”

“Are you blind? C’mon, it’s this way.”

She darted into the gravel-mazed flowerbeds outside the front of the night’s chosen establishment and tugged the arm over her shoulders with her. The movement was enough to bring Gladio and leave his balance behind. Stones scuffled as drunk limbs fought to keep their balance.

Gladio stopped when his hands were pressed against the smooth brick of the building. Pinned between them were her shoulders. It took him a moment to realise she was laughing, and when he did he caught sight of a grin too wide and bright to be anything but drunk as she fought the sound back with half-hearted efforts. The corner of his mouth quirked up. He wore half a smile and a frown at the same time; a contradiction that only made her laugh harder, until her cheeks had flushed pink.

The more detail he noticed and the happier she looked, the deeper his frown became. He knew a few drinks could make a difference, but he had no idea how many she’d had. More than a few, was the current conclusion. He leant down for a closer look at the face hiding behind her hands, and hair only for them both to jolt.

A car horn was blaring. Both turned their heads to see Ignis flush Prompto from the passenger seat and herd him into the back with brisk gestures and a scowl. He turned back and caught Rena biting her lip, pinning another laugh back before it could burst. A smile huffed onto his features before he shook his head, his arm across her shoulders and walked to the car.

“A good evening?” Ignis asked, smiling wryly as he leant against the car. The folded in with sighs and a clumsy yelp from Prompto when he left his ankle outside and tried to close the door.

“It was alright,” Rena croaked, coughing into her hand to cast away the hoarseness of whiskey and a few hours of exertion. She watched Ignis from the passenger seat as Prompto struggled with his seatbelt.

Ignis nodded lightly and pulled away from the club, joining what little traffic remained in the small hours. A tired, contented silence fell on the car. The thrum of the engine began to lull more intoxicated passengers to sleep. On a periodic glance into the rear-view mirror, Ignis saw amber eyes look more settled than they had in months, dragging on each sight they passed with lingering focus. They flicked back into the car, towards the side held by younger members.

Barely a second passed before a smooth voice made rough by drink broke the silence gently.

“Prom, get your own.”

“But mine’s straight!” he objected, folding his arms to contain fingers that couldn’t help but gently pull at the curls in front of him, only to watch them spring back.

She turned in her seat and raised an eyebrow at him. Gladio looked up from his lap and watched the scene play out. “All of it?”

The blond gestured wildly to his own hair, a longing frown on his face. “This _is_ all of it!”

The briefest flash of a keen glint shone in her eyes before she stamped it back down, shaking her head and turning away with a muttered remark.

“Damn boy doesn’t even have a pube to his name.”

A snort hit the roof of Gladio’s mouth so hard he hunched forwards, fighting back a fuller laugh as the blond sat mortified at his side. Several softer snorts left him in the minute that followed.

“You like that one, big guy?”

Gladio shook his head and weakly fought an amused grin. “Had a good slow burn to it.”

“Oh, like when you piss?”

Prompto almost threw himself across the car at the shield. “HA!”

A deep frown flashed onto his face before he laughed it away in disbelief. She turned in her seat and cringed lightly at her own crude words and fast tongue.

“Sorry.”

“Nah, I deserved that one,” he nodded. The soft pinching of her brows apologised again.

Ignis had torn through the gears, leather gloves tightening on the wheel as he fixed on the road with a set in his jaw. As Rena turned back, she caught sight of the advisor’s tensing.

“Sorry Ignis, I didn’t-.”

“No, no. It’s quite alright,” he assured, revelling in the invitation of an empty city road. The engine purred at his touches, flinching away as it clung to the tarmac and prowled through the neighbourhood. Ignis continued under his breath. “and bloody well played.”

Silence blanketed the car again, smoothing rougher voices as they rested. The city centre was pulled out from under them until they were amongst bricks and peeling paint, and the dim yellowed glow of streetlights.

“Stay lively. We’re nearly there,” Ignis glanced at her. She gave him a brief smile and watched the tenements pass by, a steady rhythm of brick and glass.

“Take me home, Ignis. Take me home.”

A snort came from the back seat. Jade eyes glared at creased brown as he drew up to a corner.

“Infantile. The both of you.”

She fought the smirk and shook it away with her head. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, but perhaps mind your tongue. Others might not respond so-.”

“Graciously,” she nodded.

Ignis took a slow breath and exhaled with a whispered ‘yes’ as he drew up outside number thirty-six. Delving the car into a space with practiced ease, he cut the engine and unfastened his seatbelt.

“I can make it up some stairs,” Rena assured.

“Do you still have your keys?” Ignis asked, leaning back to peer at the empty footwell. “You didn’t have a bag, did you?”

Rena slipped her hand under her top and nimbly brought the small, jangling set of keys out. “Yep… And nope.”

“Real classy,” Gladio snorted.

“He is,” she mused, watching Ignis as a tender pink threatened to blush his cheeks. He shook his head with a reluctantly amused smile.

She folded out of the car, already steadier as the alcohol settled in her system. Puffing the dark curls that strayed over her face, she ducked back into the car and fixed on Ignis as he clicked his seatbelt again.

“Thank you,” she nodded, stifling a yawn as she glanced at the back seat.

Still deeply flushed, Prompto’s head had lolled back as alternated between soft snores and quiet whimpers. Rena let out a quiet snort and moved her focus to Gladio. A single nod exchanged between the two of them.

“See you in…” she glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Four hours.”

“Don’t be late.”

* * *

Sweat poured from both of them, trickling over temples and dampening already dark hair until it turned black and stuck to their skin. Muscles burned and lungs struggled. The air was hot and thickened by the swathes of clouds that shrouded the sun in an inky velvet embrace. Dust and static met and fought in the pit.

“You can go harder than that!”

One side of her mouth pulled up in a keen grin. “Don’t fuckin’ tempt me.”

The broadsword crashed towards her again. She stopped it three inches from her face and ducked to the other side of it, tapping the underside of his arm with her sword. The grit shifted under her boots; just enough for fluidity and not far enough to bring her down with it. He took a brazen step towards her. She dodged back from the dark, swinging blade and waited for him to reset it over his shoulder. He always lost his grip after strikes like that. It was the perfect time. She spun towards him and only paused when the flat of her blade rested on his shoulder.

“Really?”

“You left it open for me,” she shrugged, stepping away.

“Damn it,” Gladio growled.

He waited for her to turn around, heading for her rucksack and the large, half frozen bottle of water within.

Rena’s ears twitched at the fine gravel shifting behind her, vaguely disguised by her own footsteps. She turned on her heels and held her blade above her head, barring the finer steel from bearing down. He still pushed, bringing his weight through the sword. Rena held fast, bound hands barely shaking as the crossed blades loomed above her head. Using her legs, she pushed and forced his weapon away, spinning around to land a tap on his side. His foot caught behind hers. She landed flat on her back.

“…Fuck,” she cursed, opening her eyes to the soft warning grey of the sky.

The vast emptiness above her pressed down, making her tense on herself until she sat upright, knees gathered in front of her. Its void was one she avoided. It made her nervous. Accustomed to the shade and cover of trees, open spaces were risky places to be. Even the concrete features of the city were better than the vast oppressive blue that loomed above Leide, as if held by a single thread. That soft, warning shade of grey had weighed heavy and threatened in a sweet tone.

“Up.”

She lifted an absent gaze from her boots and focused on the hand outstretched to her. Knuckles dry but not cracked, long fingers, some with papercuts and some with callouses. Forearms resting on her knees, she craned her neck to look at him. He raised his eyebrows and nodded assuredly.

“You don’t have to do that, you know?”

The hand stayed outstretched.

“I know. Old habits die hard,” he shrugged. “Raised to always help a lady up.”

“A lady?! Where?” Rena asked, tone so thick with sarcasm it sounded sincere. She looked around the pit, before her eyes circled the gallery. _Where’s the fucking marshal gone?_

Gladio snorted and withdrew his hand slowly. She shook her head as he walked past, facing the dark sky and willing it to rain and provide some relief from the stifling humidity.

His boot tapped the side of her hip. Already laced with an unimpressed look, she brought her focus back down and ran it over the pale grooves in the walls.

“Oh, nice move. Kicking me when I’m down.”

“That’s what friends are for,” he lilted before meeting his water bottle for a deep drink.

Her eyebrows gathered together as she turned over her shoulder. He stood at ease, draining the first small bottle and fishing for the second. Rena tucked a stray curl back into her bun before standing and brushing the grit from her uniform.

After he swallowed, he let out a satisfied breath and continued in a pleased tone. “Now I can say I’ve kicked your ass, too.”

“Well played,” she mimicked Ignis, making a thick brow quirk in amusement.

Rena padded quietly to her rucksack and pulled out the bottle of water as long as her forearm. The bottom third was still frozen but drifted to float when her drinking squeezed at the plastic.

“How the hell did you get that in there?”

She paused and wiped her mouth on the back of a wrapped hand. “Half-filled it, froze it, then topped it up.”

He frowned at himself.

“What?”

“Why have I never done that?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, taking another glacial drink of fresh, clear water. “You always had ice cubes? An ice-cube tray? Funky moulds? Maybe one of those fridges?”

He paused before answering. “Refrigerator.”

“There you go then,” Rena nodded, taking a final mouthful and letting it wash down her throat in a cooling wave. Slow footsteps approached her as she capped the bottle and put it back in her bag.  She could feel him standing behind her, tall form interrupting the static of charging air.

“Here.”

Twisting her torso, she turned. Her focus immediately caught on it. Freshly sharpened, clean and familiar, he held the glassy blade of her hunting knife as it reflected the shifting clouds above. Rena stood to her full height and turned to him, reaching a careful, bound hand for the leather grip. He kept it still, waiting until she had the familiar hide firmly within her grasp again, before letting go. Rena held that blade with a reverence he recognised.

“About time you had it-.”

“Thanks.”

Dark eyes held his gaze for a moment. He nodded, brows knitted in sincerity, before stepping away and returning to his holdall. She turned the steel over, feeling as though it had never left her hand. Rena tucked the knife into the utility belt on her thigh. It did nothing but reinforce her, drag her back to the cold depths of her origins and remind her of every clawing step she’d taken from them, with that knife biting into the stone of it all.

Cor Leonis stood fast at what had been his perch for the last three weeks. He observed the darkening clouds before looking to his pupils. Their improvements had been subtle, falling like raindrops in lazy rhythm. Those individual measures had become a flood. Gladiolus’ form was looser and more adaptable, whereas hers had been refined and cleaned from it’s rough hewn origins. Both still had far to go but they couldn’t do that in these halls.

A decision had to be made. Leonis wanted a second opinion.

Clarus stood alongside the marshal. Despite what he’d heard in a deep, pensive tone from the man he’d once mentored, the Shield was uneasy. He steadied himself and prayed in the guiding principles.

_What will be, will be._

_But what will be if he loses?_

Pairs of blue eyes locked, one steel and the other crystal, before turning to the students in the pit.

Gladio, face still relaxed in the calmer environment of the pit, glanced up at the gallery. His teeth met and threatening to crack each other.

_Prove yourself. No one can stop you._

Both stood to attention, young and strong, in the dim light of a brooding day. Weapons were drawn. Still as the building storm fresh from the plain of Leide, they were addressed by the echoing tone of the marshal.

“Begin.”

With a nod, they separated from the centre and began to circle each other. Gladiolus struck first. His blade was met and dodged. In the lack of burning light, both could see the other’s weapon as it reflected the medley of clouds above, threatening to strike, deafen and soak them.

The fight continued, each blow meeting another in the high clamour of a metallic duet. She sliced for his hip. He guarded with his own blade. In a storm of movement, Rena ducked aside and slipped her sword through the ornate handle of his, barging towards him to shoulder him square in the chest and separate him from his weapon.

She succeeded.

Still on his feet, Gladio summoned the broadsword back in an explosive burst of dark blue crystals bright enough to illuminate the walls for an instant. He brought it crashing down. Undeterred, Rena held her own blade up, reinforced again by the bound palm and the aching muscles that refused to be forced by any other than her own mind and instincts.

Burning under sweat coated skin, the two of them fought, repeatedly disarming the other and throwing them off balance. Gladio always suffered the loss of his sword. It was his counterweight and subconsciously balanced in his every movement. She knew that, so tried to wrench it from his grip again. When her sword pierced the decorative guard, Gladio acted without thinking.

He launched his sword, casting it back into the armiger mid-flight, and left hers embedded in ancient stone walls, the first to pierce it in a century, thirty feet from the ground.

Panting, they stilled. Rena muttered a curse through gritted teeth and began to search the granite for footholds. Also stunned by the ingenuity of his own instincts, Gladiolus stood in the square with her. Other than the quiet rasp of demanding breathing, the arena was silent until a deep, steady voice drifted down from the gallery and immediately gathered their attention.

“Continue.”

Empty handed, they frowned at their superiors. The marshal spoke again, firmer, with an iron edge to his tone.

_“Continue.”_

“Sir-,” Gladio began his protest, only to be stilled by the flashing blue of his father’s eyes.

_You’ve got a point to prove._

He turned back to Rena. She nodded and loosened the utility belt from her thigh, retreating to drop it by the wall. Smoothed, she circled back to the centre of the square, breathing the thick, aged air. The end of one of her bindings came loose. Taking deep breaths, she tightened the pale linen and stretched her hands. Gladio approached.

A whole head taller than her and powerfully built, he watched with reluctance and pulled on the fingerless gloves he’d kept in the depths of his holdall. Their close presence around his hands was unfamiliar and grated on already raw nerves. He glanced at the gallery again. His two greatest mentors and inspirations, both blue-eyed and distant, observed alongside the ghosts of these halls.

_Shields can’t fail._

“Any rules?” she asked, tucking the end of a knot back into her bindings. The smooth, low voice pushed through thick air and gathered his attention with all the command of a nudge. He ground his teeth before answering.

“Nothing tender?” He raised an eyebrow. Rena nodded and finished twitching at her hands. She pointed simultaneously to his face and crotch.

“Don’t break the babymakers. Got it.”

Had it not been for the darkening at the back of his mind as thousands of pages bled into each other; combat techniques, martial arts, laws of physics and psychology he’d learned, he would have laughed.

Hand to hand combat was all about psychology. It was rawer, closer, more personal. Without weapons, there was no distance. No differential. The odds were uneven and yet more grounded than ever. It was one against the other, bound by lines each would or wouldn’t cross. Nothing more.

He cocked his brow carefully, trying read her face. “You?”

“Nah.”

Darting past him, her fist connected below his shoulder blade and drove upwards, already threatening the joint with dislocation. Gladio turned and grappled for her. She backed away, hands clenched in a ready stance.

_They’re watching you._

Gladio burst forwards. He landed a heavy fist at her hip, enough to make her clench her jaw. A blow landed on his ribs. She was threatening him again, not carrying out the sentence. Partially winded, he hooked her arm and tried to throw her further away, to give himself time to react. Once in the air but still in his grasp, she kicked at the back of his knee and buckled it. With the rest of the momentum he had given her, she twisted him onto the weakened leg and put him on the ground. Gladio landed with a heavy thud.

Rolling away from her fallen opponent, Rena brought herself to her feet and kept up her restless rhythm, rocking her weight between alternate legs while he stood again.

_He’s watching you._

She barely had enough time to react to the foot that flew towards her. Power married grace in his attacks. He’d held his limbs longer than a sword and using them as a weapon was innate. The warmth of a coming bruise tingled over her side. She ducked the fists. Moving on the transient clues he gave her, she opened herself up for another kick. He obliged and fell into the trap. She crouched under the leg, grappled his arm and twisted it behind him. His own momentum and momentarily compromised balance had him falling again.

This time, he took her with him.

Grit chewed at her skin when she slammed into the floor. The stun was over quickly but the fizzing of blood in her veins, and the burning of lungs that had been fighting for hours, dulled everything. She scrambled away. He pinned her by the arm. In a fleeting moment, she saw it.

Dark eyes in inferno, fuelled by the charcoal that scratched reason from his mind in furious artistry. It was the creation of chest-crushing fear and a conditioned soul that screamed torment in heavy chains.

She drove a knee into his chest, hard enough to wind him and give herself time to escape. Rough grit fell from sweat soaked skin as she moved, shedding an armour that bit into her with every movement. Gladio returned to his feet with a snarl, not pausing as he came at her. The blows she wasn’t fast enough to dodge were taken by her forearms, or shoulders. She guarded her head.

Heavy footsteps approached. In a storming stride, they steadily closed in on the old open window. Destination framed by archaic stonework, the slender figure of the Immortal stood alongside the steadfast Shield, the gold of his armour paled and aged by the darkening clouds beyond. The leather was silent as the chainmail sang quietly; the siren vocals of souls cast in iron and bathed in blood. He drew level with the other men and observed the scene below.

Gladiolus never stopped. Every move she made, he moved to tear her down. Blood pounded in his ears but that couldn’t drown it out; nothing could. His attacks came crashing down and had closed Rena against a wall before she realised it was there.

The marshal’s eyes widened. He let out a firm, heavy instruction. “Stop.”

Teeth gritted, he towered above her, fist drawn back. His strike burst forwards. The gloved fist met bare stone; she’d ducked and raced out. He turned and pursued with a fury, meeting her in the centre with hard strikes. The constant barrage was unstoppable. Fists met forearms; kicks met sides with bruising force.

“Stop!”

He was too far gone. Gladio left a rare opening; one that quickly attracted a bound fist. Her strike was inches from his ribs when he caught it, hand crushing around a stubborn weapon that still met his side but without the force intended. She let him keep it, twisting around to drive an elbow into those same ribs.

He punched her lower back and used his other hand to throw her to the ground.

_“Enough!”_

Rena barely dodged his fist as it pounded into the grit by her head, emerging encrusted in the grit of centuries. She tried to roll away. A knee crashed into her hip and pinned her down. His snarl was fixed on his face; sharpening bold features. A rough hand shackled her wrists at her side. She was twisted into an unforgiving hold as his fist drew back again.

_“Gladiolus!”_

It was a momentary falter, but it was enough.

The name burned in his eyes like a drop of water thrown onto a fire; she had very little time before it turned to vapour, and the inferno returned.

Rena freed her hands and drove her knuckles unto his ribs. Air forced from already bloody lungs, his brows furrowed again. She hit him again, lower. Her knee crashed into his hip. As his leg deadened, she pressed her hands into the sharp grit, forced herself upwards and flipped her breathless opponent onto his back with a thud.

The world spun around Gladiolus. His view of pale grit and the wild eyes of a cornered creature warped until the sky was dark and threatening behind her, and a ferocity she’d once saved him from came in ragged breaths through gritted teeth.

“That’s enough!”

Captain Amicitia had bellowed his son’s name and given her a chance. He’d thrown the odds, but the outcome had been made clear. If undistracted there would have been blood gracing the grit with velvet colour for the first time in centuries, and it would not have been his own.

Dark eyes refused to leave her quarry, pinning him down with a murderous glare, a fist drawn to her shoulder and other clenched around a handful of his shirt.

The captain spoke again, taking the edge from his voice as he slipped back from witnessing the mutual brutality, unable to move, to the more pensive thoughts of how to harness it.

“That’s enough.”

She loosened her hold one component at a time. First, the eyes and gritted teeth fell back into the impassive formation of soft features in a hard expression. The readied fist opened softly. Finally, the tight grasp she used to pin him down pressed once against his chest and released his shirt. Rena stood and backed away into her area, swallowing thickly as sweat carved paths through the razor gravel stuck to her skin.

Panting, Gladiolus stood and bowed his head. He raised his eyes to the gallery slowly, dreading the view that would meet him there. It would hold all the discipline he lacked, all the control, the refined grace of power in perfect balance with the mind.

The back of his own mind was still smudged with the charcoal, blurring the last ten minutes. Time was washing it away, cleaning his conscience with clear water that stained a smoky grey when it became the past.

Three sets of pale eyes were watching him. He gave them a deep nod and backed away.

Moments came to the surface slowly, coming into focus. He shook the dull ache from his hand and pulled off the gloves, grit falling gracelessly. Gladio made for his holdall. He ripped the zip open and dug the contents into disarray until he found what he was looking for. The cool mint-striped glass met his palm and stole some of the pain. It did nothing for the shaking. He clenched his jaw and stood to his full height again.

She was in her corner, watching the sword embedded in the wall and willing it to come loose; to fall, fit into her hand and take her back. Hushed footsteps were crossing the open space and growing louder.

Gladio was dripping with sweat, head lowered and eyebrows fallen in a soft frown. He slowed his approach when she looked at him.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she breathed, putting enough volume in her voice to push it past the inaudible whisper and into the smooth, low tone. “You alright?”

His eyebrows flew up. Gladio nodded slowly and held out the potion. “Here.”

Rena glanced down at the potion before shaking her head, dust falling from her bun. She gently waved it away. Red caught his eye.

“Holy shit…” he rasped. The pale linen wraps were soaked to a deep garnet. “How hard were you hitting me?”

She looked at her hands and smirked. “Too hard.”

_For both of us._

He held out the potion again, but she only shook her head in return.

“C’mon, just-.”

“It’s fine,” she assured, holding his gaze.

She stepped away and crouched to pull the bottle of water, now fully thawed, from her rucksack. Her expression didn’t flinch at the familiar tearing of the grafted linen from split knuckles, or the throbbing warmth of blood leaving her with every heartbeat. She uncapped the bottle and poured the chilled water over the wounds, washing the grit and threads away from bones that bared under sinews when she formed a fist. Gladio watched as blood, dust and water pooled on the ground before sinking in.

Rena lifted her head with a sniff and looked to the gallery. Instinct kicked in her gut and launched itself from rest with powerful legs, setting the rabbit to run. Gladio caught the wary look in her eye and followed it to the three men who’d observed. He breathed a laugh before fixing back on her and frowning as she rinsed the wounds she’d neglected to notice.

“You’re gonna like him.”

She glanced at Gladio, before fixing back on the intruder. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he nodded, groaning hoarsely as he sat against the wall. “Titus Drautos. Captain of the Kingsglaive. Tactician. Viciously intelligent. One hell of a swordsman. He’s a nice guy, just don’t piss him off.”

“Right,” she trailed, eyes fixed on the man.

He stood alongside the others as they quietly discussed their verdict. It was clear, but Clarus and Cor wanted no loose threads. Distracted by the dark eyes watching him, he pulled his focus back to listen and watched the dark cloud gather.

“The question remains; how did she do it? He’s never fought like that before, not that I’ve seen. You?” Clarus asked, blue eyes burning into an icier shade. Cor’s frown had deepened as his jaw clenched.

“No. I don’t know what she did, or _why_ he reacted.”

“Well, Astrals know how she survived!” Clarus whispered harshly, determined to keep this conversation between the three of them. “I thought he might-.”

“I know,” Cor nodded, eyes wary.

For as still as they stood, both were shaken by the clash they’d witnessed. Silence fell between the three of them.

“He’s a beast of our own making,” Drautos said, to the storm more than either of them. They turned to him; blue eyes fixing on a greyed green. “ _She’s_ something else entirely. She brought that out in him.”

All three turned back to the square, watching as the pair talked quietly.

“Let her try for the Glaive.”

Cor’s razor-sharp stare whipped around to an impassive expression. “She’s shown no-.”

“ _That,_ ” he nodded to the pit before watching Cor with pinched brows. “could be a channelling issue. She can access his magic but not fully harness it. Comes out in brute strength.”

Clarus hummed deeply. The bright blue of his eyes only left his son when Cor inhaled softly.

“Fine. This has gone on long enough, anyway. We can’t keep them here for the rest of their lives, waiting for them to kill each other. When do you want her?”

The corner of Drautos’ mouth quirked into a game smile. “Within the next few days. Before she forgets what _that_ felt like. Otherwise, she might have trouble.”

“I’ll have Talo cover her shift.”

“Perfect,” he nodded, taking a deep breath of the charged air and watching as blood dripped from her knuckles. “I’ll see what I can do with her.”

Rena’s eyes flicked sharply to his, catching him mid-observation. He kept looking, brazenly watching her in spite of her awareness. Her jaw clenched, but he was too far away to see.

“I guess we’re done here.”

She nodded and waited for Drautos to avert his gaze before moving her own focus back to the clouds. A ghostly touch passed over the back of her neck, making the fine hairs stand on end. She smoothed them down with a bloodied hand and replied.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, it’s been a-,” his own deep rumble was interrupted by a much greater one. The old halls were shaken by the thunder, having their dust cast loose by the Fulgarian’s force. Gladio watched the sky with wide brown eyes. “ _Woah.”_

Forearms resting on her knees and knuckles dripping beyond, the translucent hairs on her arms stood up as the charged airs finally exhaled in their roar. Gladio caught sight of the goosebumps.

“Scared of storms?”

“Nah,” she shook her head, watching the foreboding clouds with lush eyes and willing them to share their wisdoms again. “Love them.”


	6. Consideration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rena is tried with the Glaives to see if she could join their ranks, and in an effort to explain her winning streak. Her introduction to the Kingsglaive and their notorious captain leave a lasting impression on all parties involved.

“Oh, man! Am I glad to see you!”

She pulled the red flannel from her rucksack and briefly flapped it out, before shrugging on the loose, wrinkled fabric.

“Hey Prom.”

Rena barely had to turn around to know the blond was bouncing on his heels behind her. When she stood to her full height and twisted her torso, there he was. Bright, eager blue eyes trying to commit her to memory again and a pale bottom lip trapped between his teeth. He worried it until it flushed a deeper pink.

“You alright?”

“I told him about the guns!” Prompto blurted. He pressed his lips, trying to fight the grin and keep her guessing. Settled eyes widened fractionally in piqued curiosity.

“How’d he take it?” she asked, reaching up to untie her hair as she swayed from side to side.

Prompto gaped around an answer. It was all still fresh in his mind from the undeniably nerve-wracking conversation he’d had with the marshal. Leonis’ frown had been deeper that day, and the thunder had done nothing to soothe Prompto’s nerves. The heatwave had passed, and the weather was finally obeying its timing. When he finally choked out words, Rena listened intently.

“He said, and I quote, he’d _organise something_.”

“And?”

“ _And_ he’s sending me and another couple of guys to the range to see how we do against a few targets. _This_ gunslinger just got himself one step closer to a place on the Crownsguard,” he grinned, pointing his thumbs to himself.

Rena shook her head and responded. “ _One._ The fun doesn’t fuckin stop once you join. Gets worse, to be honest.”

“Oh _yeah..._ How was the breakfast club?” He asked, wiggling an eyebrow.

“First rule of breakfast club is you do not talk about breakfast club.”

“Oh! Nice cross-reference! You’re learning well, my young apprentice. I’ll make a modern city girl outta you yet,” he rambled proudly, jogging alongside her as she took powerful strides from the training field.

Rena suppressed a smile and shook her head again, quickly swinging her rucksack to the front. She unstrapped the hunting knife from her thigh belt and gestured to Prompto with the handle.

“Somehow, I don’t think you will.”

Rena put the knife in the bag and shouldered it properly.

“Where you going anyway? It’s just past eight. You’re not on shift today?” he tilted his head, turning to walk backwards and still face her.

“I _was._ Just got here. Marshal’s sending me out to try the Kingsglaive… Yay.”

“Y’know, for a ‘yay’ that sounded an awful lot like a ‘nay’,” Prompto sang, eyebrows raised and small mouth pouting to draw an answer from her, either through amusement or confusion. “C’mon Rena! Those guys are the best of the best! I mean, using _magic?_ That’s some next level stuff.”

“Yeah, I might not be on that level,” she admitted, shaking her head. “Pretty sure I’m _not_ , to be honest.”

“You _could_ be,” he said, raising his eyebrows in an attempt to encourage her. He continued in a mutter. “It would explain a lot. Mainly your drinking to be honest, I dunno how you do that. Burning off the alcohol with those little flameys.”

Cornflower eyes widened when she responded, having not expected her to hear. “Yeah, no, that’s just practice, a liver and sleep.”

Prompto shook his head with an incredulous look. “How come you heard that under all that hair?”

“And a headphone,” she nodded, brushed her hair aside to reveal the black cable.

“Ooh! What’re you listening to?”

“Ah, just some random shit. I looked up that stuff you talked about the other day and did a little more digging,” she pulled the phone from her back pocket and skipped a few songs as Prompto held the loose headphone to his ear.

“That one! Aw c’mon, you can’t skip that! It’s a classic! Skipping that’s like-.”

“Wall,” she informed flatly, catching sight of the approaching corner.

Prompto turned on his heels and spun in the corner to turn, narrowly avoiding a pair of passing guards. The halls were cool, but bright in the late summer sun. Floor so well polished they set entire stretches of the Crownsguard headquarters into blinding light. The pair strode into the entrance hallway. It was high-ceilinged and ornately decorated in the Citadel’s style, simultaneously suave and business like, while retaining an edge of luxury. Boots light on the staircases that saw hundreds of pairs a day, if not more, they descended into the shaded recesses and paused by the doors.

“Well, see you later, I guess,” Prompto paused, handing the spare headphone back.

Rena accepted it, absently tucking it into her tank top, before sticking her thumbs in her pockets and watching the blond as he bounced on his feet. A light blush spread over his freckled cheeks as he scratched the back of his head. She turned briefly to the tall doors.

“Yeah,” she breathed. Pulling her focus back to Prompto, she swept a handful of her hair back from her face and frowned softly at her fidgeting friend. “I’ll uhm, I’ll-.”

“Tell me how it went, explain every fine detail of the Glaives to me,” he looked at the ceiling with wide blue eyes, nodding his head to either side with his statements. He continued with a rolled ‘r’. “ _Regale_ the great saga of how you took the Kingsglaive by storm and-.”

“I probably won’t.”

“- you probably _might_ ,” Prompto raised his brows, a mischievous grin spreading across his pale lips as he inhaled to continue his monologue. “And then we’ll get slushies”

He finished with cosmic eyes so wide they sparkled like the sun on the sea and freckled cheeks balled, tense to suppress a wider grin. Prompto was very pleased with himself.

Rena was onto him.

“That means going to the arcade.”

“Not necessarily-.”

“You want to go to the arcade?”

“- I would _never_ bribe you with an iced beverage, the best of which may or may not be served at Insomnia’s finest arcading establishment,” he pursed his lips, fighting a laugh in his throat. When he turned back to the deadpanning Rena, he held the façade.

“…Yeah, course you wouldn’t. So, eight?”

“Yeah, eight’s good,” Prompto nodded, loosening from his theatrics. “See you there or do you want me to drop by- _oh!_ Did you ask the landlord yet?”

Hand on the door, Rena took a quick breath. “Yeah, actually, I did.”

“And? What’d he say?” Prompto’s eyes glimmered as he clasped and unclasped freckled hands.

“It’s gonna put the rent up and I have to pay for anything they wreck. I’ll need to run home at lunch to take them out, too, but-,”

“I could do that for you,” he shrugged. A keen smile played at his lips. Dark eyebrows raised at him.

“You sure?”

“Yeah! I love them, they love me. I’m pretty good with dogs, don’t ya know? Quick run around the park won’t do me any harm. Gives me something to do on lunchbreaks.”

“Prompto, seriously-.”

“It’s fine! Great, actually! I’d love to,” he nodded, trapping his bottom lip between his teeth. Rena shook her head in gentle disbelief.

“Thanks Prom. Really man, just- thanks,” she frowned softly, pulling the heavy walnut door open. A gentle breeze drifted in, and with it the sound of city traffic dying down after rush hour. Curls swayed before she swept them away. “Look, I’ve gotta go, they want me there by ten, but catch you later, okay?”

“Sure thing!” he grinned, revelling in the momentary swirl of air as it smudged the blush away from his cheeks and pressed fresh freckles into the skin with every drop of sunshine that landed on him. “Go give ‘em hell!”

“Hell _no_ ¸ I’ll get told off again!” she shook her head, stepping out of the cool, air-conditioned atrium and into the basking warmth of the city. Prompto grinned and waved her off before closing the door.

Facing a concrete landscape of bright light, Rena put her headphones in and turned the music up loud enough to drown out the traffic and blaring alarms of changing lights. The city centre blossomed with rare colours; advertising screens, billboards, and more colourful members of the city’s restless commuters; both pedestrian and vehicular. She kept a strong pace. As the Citadel and the adjoined Crownsguard headquarters were pushed away behind her with every step, the Glaive base called from the eastern edge of the city centre.

Kept in time by a steady beat, boots met concrete again and again. The bright blue of the sky was held high by towering skyscrapers. It wasn’t the forest she was used to, but it would do. The trees were rare and confined to the parks that fell like green clouds on the suburbs. Even they bustled with people. Less of the suited and booted variety; more sneakers, strollers and leisurely paces.

A light ahead turned orange. With quick glance to the traffic either side, Rena cut her losses and waited. Something touched her leg. Glancing down, a small peach-coloured ball of fur pressed its round black nose against her boot and briefly wagged its tail. Then another joined, bigger, less fluffy. Then another. Rena turned her head to see a young blonde woman, belted at the waist with half a dozen leashes attached, she did a quick head count of her flock. The two exchanged quick nods. One of the dogs barked at the beeping of the changing lights but joined the cloud of canines as pedestrians temporarily conquered the road.

Rena checked the map on her phone. _Making good time._ She tucked it back into her pocket and carried on. The building heat of the early day was bouncing off the concrete and back up at her.

Sunlight was borderline useless here; it didn’t do anything. The pale rays were stopped by buildings, people, hitting masonry and playing no part in growing anything. The city, especially the centre, was so meticulously stacked full and maintained that weeds were non-existent. The only plants here were cut flowers or the salads in side bowls at restaurants she passed.

She kept in stride, worming out of the flannel under the rucksack and tying it around her waist. The outwardly modern appearance of the Kingsglaive headquarters came into view when she turned a corner. Quiet and blending into the city, they would’ve been undetectable had it not been for the Glaives stationed at the doors. She reached the bottom of the steps before spotting a familiar silhouette.

He leant against a pillar; tall and lazily powerful. Topped by a Crownsguard cap and focused on the phone in his hand, Gladio didn’t see her coming. She played innocent. Walking past the pillar as if she were simply heading to work, her hand darted out and flicked the bill upwards. He scrambled to catch the hat as it tumbled from his head.

“Hey!”

“Morning Amicitia.”

The aggression left his tone as he tugged the cap back down on his head and shouldered his holdall. “Been waiting for you. You’re-.”

“Not late,” she remarked, pausing the music on her phone and wrapping the headphones up again. “What you doing here anyway?”

“Cor wanted me to keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t break anyone,” he nodded, walking alongside her as they approached the glass doors of the Glaive’s headquarters.

“That’s good of him. Shame it had to be you though,” she said, tone laced with a hint of sarcasm.

“Oh, what you trying to say? Haven’t seen you in three days. You miss me yet?”

“Miss beating the shit out of you, more like,” Rena cocked an eyebrow and stepped forwards to open the door. He stood still. “It was good stress relief. Occupational therapy, I guess.”

“Glad to be of service.”

“Are you though? Are you sincerely _glad­-_?”

He fixed a deadpan stare at her. “Never heard that one before. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“Not from me, you haven’t, and I am not” she retorted and gently gestured to the open door. “Now come on. What’re you waiting for?”

“You really ought to-.” He frowned, reaching to hold the door and let her inside.

“Cut the _lady_ shit and get in.”

Gladiolus stood firm. He stepped aside and held open the adjacent door, gesturing towards the building.

“In you go.”

“No, thank you,” she held her own door.

The two held their doors and their ground, facing each other with forced graceful smiles. The stand-off carried on, even as someone walked through the open doors reaching for handles that weren’t there. One raised eyebrow was mirrored by the other. A voice calling from inside gathered their simultaneous attention.

“Can you two just come inside? Please? You’re letting all the cold air out.”

“Sorry.”

“Yep, just coming.”

They still didn’t move.

“After you,” he nodded towards the door, jaw beginning to clench at the lasting patience.

“I’m going to insist on this one.”

The same exasperated voice floated out with the cool breeze it so coveted. “Or you could both come in at the same time? Like, _now?_ ”

They apologised again and were careful to enter the building simultaneously. As they approached the front desk in the glass-fronted foyer, strewn with a rare potted palm and polished to a fine sheen, Rena cast her eyes around the high-ceilinged room. When her focus fell back to her right, Gladio was under a familiar cap.

Her hand flew out to knock it from his head again with very little hesitation.

A brief growl of frustration left Gladio as he swiped to catch the cap.

“Bad manners to wear a hat inside. If you’re gonna be a gentleman, be consistent,” she said, in all seriousness.

Gladio tucked the cap into his hoodie pocket and shook his head, muttering to himself but knowing she could hear him. “Ladies can wear hats inside.”

“Double standard,” she shrugged. “Life’s not fair.”

They met the front desk and were received by a well-dressed young man. He’d loosened his navy silk tie and unbuttoned his shirt to the clavicle. With a small desk fan gently passing over him and offering little relief, he ran a sluggish hand over slicked back black hair.

“Ah, you two,” he sighed, unimpressed. “What can I do for you?”

“Captain put in a request for Lauritas, R. It’s a recruitment slash training session.”

The young man sucked at his bottom lip while Gladio spoke, his ice blue eyes dulled by fatigue. He took a sharp inhale before fitting his words onto that next breath.

“Yes, he did put that through. The records arrived yesterday, thanks have been sent to the Marshal. Ulric is waiting in the briefing room. Can I offer you some tea, coffee, water, general refreshments, while you wait, sir?”

After his brow had cocked at the mention of a familiar name, Gladio shook his head and pouted in thought.

“No, thanks. I’ll go with her.”

“A-are you sure, sir?”

“Yup,” he nodded. “Thanks anyway.”

Gladio stepped from the desk and began to stride away, repositioning his holdall. The pair ducked through one of the automatic doors, thus saving another argument, and delved deeper into the Glaive’s headquarters.

Once through that door, the glass and polished marble disappeared as the building grafted into older materials. The floor became a warm parquet, finely kept and recently waxed. Pale brickwork, accented by dark oak, almost made her look at home. A pair of glaives passed them, gathering Rena’s attention until they drew level. Gladio, thumb pressed against the strap of his bag and pulling it taut, noticed her racing eyes and the hands already being bound as she walked.

“How come they get nice uniforms?”

Gladio snorted a laugh. “Drautos has a good eye. Any of the Glaives’ll tell you he’s a perfectionist. _And_ there aren’t as many of ‘em. Budget goes further. They get the same gear as the Guard’s higher-ups.”

“Just because they can use the king’s magic?” She asked, an eyebrow raised.

Gladio rounded a corner and set his focus on a pair of heavy wooden doors at the end. The hallway was empty and pulsed with their footsteps.

“They can’t just tap in; His Majesty has to let them. Same way Noct lets us.”

“That how you can hide the butterknife?”

“Pretty much. That, and it’s glaivesteel,” he nodded. She stepped ahead, already aiming for the door. Gladio narrowed his eyes and picked up his pace. Rena did the same.

“Meaning?” She asked, almost at a jog.

“Conducts magic like electricity. Some of the Glaives use it to warp too. Can make a hell of a difference on the- hey!”

Rena snorted and broke into a sprint. Gladio shot after her, long legs giving him the advantage, but she’d had the head start. Both reached the door at the same time, hands landing on the cold iron handle. They pulled the door open and locked eyes for another stalemate.

“After you, lieutenant.”

“Don’t pull that one, that’s not fair.”

“Sure as fuck isn’t, now get in,” she raised an eyebrow. Gladio straightened into attention, before stepping across the threshold.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Get lost.”

“Hey, man! How you doing?”

Head to toe in the Kingsglaive uniform, they were greeted by a boyishly crooked smile and stormy blue eyes. He walked towards them at an easy gate, heavy boots landing light on the opulent rugs. The briefing room was cavernous and cosy at the same time. Natural materials smoothed the rising hairs on her nape, but the clear voice had still fallen into quiet echoes.

“Not bad, yourself?” Gladio grinned, greeting the smaller man with a brief hug. Heavy hands pounded solids backs as the two parted.

“Eh, captain’s keeping us busy but what can you do? What’re you doing here?”

“Sounds about right. Yeah, I’m keeping an eye on this one,” he gestured over his shoulder.

Gladio stood aside and opened the space between Rena and the Glaive. Impassive as ever, she watched him carefully from behind dark green eyes. They caught on the small tattoos on his cheeks, the line trailing down his neck and the wispy braids in his smoky hair.

Stormy eyes did the same, but with a sparking curiosity. They fell on strong limbs, a tall form, a hard expression and unreadable eyes. The earthy curls concealed one of her eyes and shielded her behind the messy curtain. His observations continued even as a tanned hand landed on his shoulder.

“Nyx, this is Puffball. Puffball, Nyx.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she said flatly, sweeping her hair away with a hand bound in clean linen. Nyx’s eyebrows raised as Gladio took easy steps back towards her. He didn’t hide his smirk when the Shield turned back around and shook his head at her either. She focused on her first Glaive. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too. What’s your name?”

“Rena.”

“We had you down as Renata,” he frowned softly. “Nickname?”

“Typo, at this stage of the game,” she sighed. “How long have you guys known each other?”

Gladio had been looking out of the eastern windows, letting the late morning sun warm his skin. At the question, black lashes parted and the shrinking of inky pupils had set the brown of his eyes on fire. Heavy brows fell into a frown. He turned around and squinted at Nyx with half a smile on his face as the older man laughed softly and held his end of the conversation.

“Oh, hell, we go way back. I first met him he was, pff, maybe this big?” Nyx held a hand level with his sternum. Gladio came closer and tapped it up by an inch or two. He huffed a laugh.

“I was ten.”

Nyx frowned at his own hand. “Yeah, you were a big kid.”

“Still is,” Rena cocked her head. Gladio, walking behind her as he circled the room slowly, lowered his brows at Rena’s words.

Blue eyes flicked between them. A weakly suppressed smile revealed his dimples as he shook his head.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” he agreed. Thick brows reinforced their waning frown.

“Had my first training with the Glaive at sixteen. Nyx here-.”

“Taught this ladykiller everything he knows,” he closed his eyes proudly as his hand landed on a higher shoulder. Gladio sighed heavily before turning to Nyx. He abated. “ _Most_ things. I couldn’t be there for some things, of course. Sometimes you need a little privacy, y’know?”

A snort left Rena at the suggestion.

“We go way back, is what he’s trying to say,” Gladio summarised, shaking his head at the mischievously twisting corner of Nyx’s mouth.

Arms crossed, he continued his quiet pacing. He stood to form a triangle with the others and cast calm eyes over the briefing boards. The maps were marked. They’d be moving out in a few days’ time. Gladio caught sight of the roster and smirked at names that sparked faces he knew.

A smoother voice pooled in the room, coasting over stonework as smooth as the varnished support beams. “Nice place.”

Nyx outstretched his arms in welcome. “Hearth and home. You’ll hear that a lot here. Along with a lot of other subtle crap from Captain Cryptic. Speaking of which, you’re due at ten, right? Let’s get you in there.”

“You busy, Nyx?”

“Nah, just some PT. Why?”

“Need a sparring partner? Been a while,” he jutted his chin up in friendly challenge. Amber eyes sparked playfully as a keen smile spread on his lips. Nyx’s tongue pushed at his cheek as he shook his head gently. He began to walk to the far end of the room.

“Come on, you two. And _you_ ,” he said, walking backwards to point at Gladio. “You ready for an ass kicking?”

“He’s had a lot of practice.”

Gladio’s expression deadpanned. Nyx ‘s eyebrows jumped up quickly as he turned, a grin spreading as he led them through the halls. Leaving the briefing room behind, they carried deeper into the base. The wooden elements faded away; roots didn’t reach this far. The stonework darkened until they came to a hallway with a bolstered iron door at the end. Nyx pushed it open and temporarily blinded them.

When pupils shrank enough to see the training arena beyond in clarity, the black uniforms of Glaives dotted the rougher, thunder-grey stone. Some fought in pairs or groups on the ground; others burst in and out of existence, marked by flashes of crystal blue. Rena was quick to take in the scene, already feeling the pull of the walls. The arena was perfectly round; no corners. In the centre rough pillars stood, as if every drop of rain to fall on the city had made them taller and not beaten them back. Beyond the walls, taut red flags and wire caged them.

“Hey, Nyx! Over here!”

“Look who I brought,” he yelled back, thumb pointed over his shoulder.

“Gladio? What the hell are you doing here?”

A sturdy man approached, with a thick braid on one side of his head. He grinned broadly at the younger man.

“He’s babysitting-.”

“Again?”

A slender young woman joined them. She watched with keen brown eyes and tilted her head to the side. After flashing a familiar smile to the young Shield, she met another dark hue.

“Well, hey. Don’t be shy,” she said gently.

Rena, hands busy tightening her bindings, nodded a greeting and spoke in her low, smooth tone. “Hey.”

Nyx stood between the pair and hooked his arms around their necks, swaying gently despite their quiet protests and rolling eyes. He locked on Rena and patted each on the head as he spoke.

“This is Libertus, and Crowe. Guys, this here’s Rena. She’s trying out.”

“Hey kid, you done this before? You look familiar,” Libertus frowned, his rough voice as warm as his smile. Rena shook her head and buried a hand in her hair.

“Nah, she’s new all round, isn’t she Gladio?”

“Yep. Only been in the guard about a month.”

“Holy shit, she’s only a baby! What’re you doing bringing her here?” Crowe’s eyes widened. Her deep frown was matched by the concerned pinching of brows shown by Libertus.

“She beat the shit out of him.” Nyx closed his eyes and gave a sage nod.

All eyes flicked between the two of them. The Crownsguard routine made certain demands of it’s sworn. Their bodies were weapons. Trained to their optimum and convinced they were always one step below, they were both muscular and tall. The Guard carved them until they were as close to excellence as they could be, until they were uniform; one link in chainmail.

By contrast, the Glaives had more variation. Each was a separate weapon in the arsenal, a different puzzle piece. Equally effective, but undoubtedly specialised, they were the elite. They were kept that way by an iron fist.

“ _She_ beat him?” Libertus pointed lightly towards her. A quiet exclamation came when Crowe elbowed him in the side.

“Hey! What’re you trying to say, Libs? Look at her. If anyone was gonna do it, it’d be her. Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”

Rena tilted her head before pulling her brows together. “My hand slipped.”

The corner of Libertus’ mouth pulled up. His rich laugh bounced against the stone walls. Crowe let out her own quiet chuckle before flicking her focus between the young pair. She gave a quick glance to Nyx. He shook his head. Crowe’s lips curled in a smirk before she turned back to them.

“So, how’d you two meet?”

“She tried to kill Noct.”

“It was an accident.”

A knife, quickly followed by a bright blue flash at the side of the group and made them all flinch. Gladio itched for his sword, and still wanted to summon it when a cutting tone filled the quiet air, interrupting the warm peace.

“Ohoho! Fresh meat.”

“Fuck off, Tredd.”

“Yeah, you don’t wanna piss this one off.”

The redhead smirked devilishly. “No? What did she do?”

“Beat the shit out of him,” Nyx nodded towards Gladio, whose mouth was already open to defend himself.

“She didn’t mean-.”

“About time somebody did. You grab him by the balls for me, sweetcheeks?” Tredd asked, stepping closer to her. Curious hazel eyes mapped her impassive features.

“Grab them yourself.”

Retreating with amused raised eyebrows, the redhead was vivacious and testing. He stood close, spoke loudly and pulled any loose threads he could see. Rena gave him none. Even Gladio stood an arm-length from her. A foot away from her, she stayed locked on him even when Crowe spoke up.

“Tredd, give her some space.”

“Nah, I wanna give her a _try_ ,” he grinned. Under the glares of the others, he shrugged. “If she took him down, I won’t be much more effort. Just a little warm-up. Whaddya say?”

The sound of loud slurping and lips smacking gathered all their attentions. Large chocolate brown eyes framed by thick lashes narrowed when he smiled nervously and lowered the orange from his mouth, quickly wiping the juice from his stubbled chin. He waved at her quickly.

“Hi.”

“Hey. You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, the pitch of his voice skyrocketing. A blush began to burn under warmly tanned cheeks. He coughed and continued. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Pelna.”

“Rena. Nice to meet you.”

“You too.”

“This gets any more awkward, I’m gonna fuckin’ puke.”

“Tredd, get outta here,” Nyx said flatly. The redhead scoffed.

“Nah. Like I said, wanna try her out and since you’re all so precious and it’s _her_ decision. I’ll try again,” he mockingly informed as he turned back to Rena. “So, what’s the verdict?”

“Fine.”

“Yes! Finally, we got a fun one.”

Crowe was the next to speak, holding out her hands in a vague attempt to pause the situation. “Okay, you guys are nuts. Cap turns up, what’s he gonna think?”

“That I was getting her warmed up for him?”

“That you were trying to break his new toy before he even got to play with it. Hey,” Nyx turned to Rena as she shucked off her rucksack and shrugged out of the flannel. “Can you even use spells yet?”

“Nope,” she said, throwing the shirt inside and tying the bag closed again.

Stormy blue eyes widened fractionally. “You gotta be fuckin- Tredd. Don’t use that against her.”

“You got it, hero,” he confirmed, pulling a dagger from its sheath and tapping it to his temple before pointing it to Nyx. He turned his focus back to Rena and bounced the curved blade in his grip. “Let’s dance.”

The group loosened to stand in a rough circle. Tredd fixed a sharp smile on his face, his scar only acting to extend it, and struck. Quick and elaborate, he didn’t waste time with the grace Ignis fought with. His blade was stopped inches from her shoulder when she grabbed his wrist and kneed him in the opposing hip. Thrown off balance, he recovered quickly. Rena took up her boxing stance.

Tredd came at her again, knife carving for her side as he reached out to grasp her arm and hold her still. She ducked under the busy arms and swept her leg behind his. He landed flat on his back with a loud thud as the air was forced from his lungs.

“Fuck, girl,” he wheezed, rubbing the heel of his hand across his chest.

“Sorry.”

Tredd pulled his focus from the pale blue sky to the newest amongst them. She stood, hair loose and half-concealing her face, lips parted and eyes dark. A larger shape loomed behind her. He frowned and watched as an amber eye on the line of a scar appeared at the side of her head. The smell of cheap liquor and cheaper mixers burned in his nose alongside the scents of night; sweat, sex, heat and no small quantity of sharp aftershave.

“Hey, aren’t you two supposed to be busy railing each other into the next life?”

Both snorted a laugh. The smoother tone came first, followed by a gravelly timbre.

“What?”

“Hell no.”

“You sure? Didn’t look that way when he was getting all handsy at the bar,” Tredd propped himself up on his elbows and pointed weakly at them as he caught his breath. “You should let your hair down more often, princess. You suit it. Don’t really suit him, but there you go.”

Crowe narrowed her eyes. “You okay, Tredd?”

“Who me? Never better. You should see the view from down here,” he grinned, letting his head fall onto his shoulder as he watched her unmoving expression. “I’d say could we try this with my ceiling as a backdrop but Tredd doesn’t bottom, baby.”

He sprang back to his feet and brushed himself off, tucking his knife back into its sheath until only the red leather handle remained.

“Where you from?” He asked, cocking a brow as he stood close, but not as close as before.

“Cleigne.”

“Ooh, _now_ I’m interested.”

Tredd began to circle her, pulling his hair back into its rough spikes with idle tugs from his own hands. She stood still, tall and calm. His circles drew smaller as he continued.

“See, I’ve heard things about you chicks. Some say that Cleigne girls are the dirtiest ones out there. What d’you make of that?”

Rena fixed an impassive stare on middle distance, eyes locking onto him whenever he entered her peripheral and following him until he left it again.

As Tredd’s observations continued, Gladio stood behind Nyx and Libertus.

“How the hell would he know?”

“He’s Tredd,” Nyx shrugged.

“Libs,” Crowe placed a hand on his shoulder. “C’mon. I still need to even those scores.”

“Bring it on,” he smirked, following as she led away.

“…So, tell me sweetheart,”

She fought the clenching of her jaw at every petname.

“Are you a clean Cleigne girl?” He cocked an eyebrow as he passed into her peripheral again.

“Wanna find out, little guy?”

Tredd let out a bark of laughter. “You bet. I like a challenge. I saw you after a few drinks, there’s magic in those hips.”

He continued to circle, so close she could smell the fizzing sweet scent of his morning shower. She gritted her teeth when she felt the rag in her back pocket move. Tredd let the wine-red fabric slip through his loose grip and left it swaying behind her. Her composure remained uncracked; it was a quiet power.

“See, once you go Glaive, you never go back. The Guard fuck like animals. They lack a certain… _spark,_ ” he snapped his fingers and let miniature lightning strikes play between his fingers. “They’re wasting you, sweetheart.”

His eyes widened when she spoke. Rena kept her voice quiet enough to be husky, smoky with the dying fires of too many nights lost to the bottle.

“It’s the only way to sate the craving. Only _real_ way, anyway.”

Chestnut eyes fixed on a deep green, shining with a teased interest. He stopped circling. They stood face to face, barely inches from each other as he leant closer. The scent of his skin deepened to dark cherries and darker drinks that would’ve paired well with rums and citrus. A quiet laugh put a smirk on his face. His scar only lengthened it, twisting it over his cheek in a trail that led her from his eyes to his lips. A smooth, pale petal pink that defied the redder tones of his hair, she didn’t linger long before locking eyes with him again.

Still turning lightning strikes in his hand, he let them die and hooked a curl around his finger. He twisted it delicately until it wrapped its coil around him. A steady breath came with the hint of a smirk. Tredd’s focus flicked down to her lips. When he looked up again, green eyes were daring him.

When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper that smoothed over her cheek.

“Oh, they were right about Cleigne.”

“How’d you know, pipsqueak?”

The gravelly tone stopped Tredd an inch from her lips. He let the curl slip from his hold and stepped away, scoffing an incredulous laugh as he turned towards the source. That same finger pointed briefly at Gladio’s chest.

“Birdbrain, did you forget who you’re talking to? This is the one and only Tredd, here,” he tilted his head as he moved constantly. “I’ve had the good fortune of knowing _two_ Cleigne women.”

“Separately or together?” Rena asked calmly. She’d turned to face him with folded arms, effectively caging him in the six feet between herself and Gladio. Gladio’s eyes widened, a thick eyebrow thrown high by her candid statement. He smiled devilishly and turned on his heels to face her.

“Both.”

“And?” Gladio kept his eyebrow up but threw scepticism into his expression.

“Oh boys, boys, _boys!_ Not in front of the lady. I’m gonna need to take a little _break._ ”

“Tredd-.”

“Getting lost, hero. I’m getting lost, argh,” he waved a dismissive hand before shooting a wink to Rena and launching his knife. The redhead was gone in a flash of blue.

“Well, now that’s over, thank the damn Astrals, I’m gonna go get Cap,” a voice as smoky as his hair barely broke the momentarily restful silence. He held a hand out to Rena. “Sorry about him, he’s… You did good. Thanks for putting him on his ass for us.”

“It’s alright,” she nodded, pulling her rucksack onto one shoulder.

“Good. If you can handle him, Cap’s gonna be a breeze, ‘kay?” he smiled in encouragement and backed away before racing up the stone steps and back into the halls.

Gladio turned his focus back to her. Rena’s impassive expression was broken by a snort of laughter. He huffed a laugh through his nose and stepped closer. She gave him a brief look before mapping the training arena again.

“You two’d be a perfect couple.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” she asked, arms folded to stop her tightening the bindings any further.

“Both as filthy as each other. Imagine Iggy. He’d be horrified,” he smiled, crossing his arms across his chest as he rocked back and forth on his heels.

“I’d do it for the look on his face but nah. Haven’t got time for that shit,” Rena shook her head and watched as a recognisable burst of red hair appeared two thirds of the way up a pillar before climbing the rest. “He’s got a fuckin’ nice ass...”

“You want tail, go chase it.”

“Might do. Always liked redheads.”

“Oh yeah, you two are _perfect_ for each other.”

The bright flash of steel and the hard sound of it embedding itself in the stonework by their feet caught their attention, though not as sharply as the first time. The faint burst of a distant warp pulsed through the air. In a blur of motion, Rena picked up the red leather handle and launched the dagger into a wall. Her eyebrows raised when it bit into the masonry.

“Lucky throw,” she shrugged.

A fizz of blue glass shards appeared at the knife, followed promptly by retching and the spatter of liquid on stone. A howl of deep laughter echoed around the arena.

Gladio snorted and shook his head. “Not for him. Come on, let’s get you prepped.”

“Sounds good,” she nodded, following as he led her to the edge of the arena.

He waved lightly to the weapon stand and dumped his holdall at the side. Rena dropped her rucksack at the other side and fished out the thigh belt and knife. After tightening the black leather straps and throwing her hair into a bun, she stood and swayed in front of the stand.

“You ready?” He asked, broadsword already slung over his shoulder.

She plucked a sword out and turned it in her hand. Glaivesteel was lighter than its regular counterpart. Strong enough to be repeatedly thrown into just about any surface, it’s held sharper edges longer and was a dark, thunderous grey.

“Let’s go.”

In the wider space of the arena and solid ground at their feet, Rena and Gladio were quiet. Steel sang in the open space, amongst the grating of other weapons as they slipped into the gaps in the stonework or carved new ones.

He struck first. The swing was barely halfway through when she’d blocked it and delivered a blow of her own. The flat of the steel tapped his ribs. He snapped his blade upright again. Rena dodged back as the blunt but still formidable end ripped through the air. As he brought the blade back and spun, she it’s heavy landing with the new sword, holding it firm with a second hand on the blade.

They both held their ground, closing in on each other as they held the razor edges steady. Rena knew what came next. He’d give a push and use her loss of balance to finish his next swing before she had the time to react.

She let go.

Stepping aside and letting his sword bite the stone, she spun past and held the flat of her own blade by his neck.

“Hold up.”

She lowered the weapon and stepped out from behind him. A steel talon stood proud in the masonry. Gladio recognised it and let his sword fall back into the armiger. After a burst of blue that burned away to deeper purples, a gentle laugh came through a soft smile.

“He’s ready for you,” Nyx nodded, pointing the other kukri to a quieter section of the arena.

Rena glanced and nodded. She turned back to the Glaive. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” he smiled crookedly. He turned his focus to Gladio. “And _you,_ how about a little bet? I kick your ass, you buy a round next time we’re out.”

“You’re gonna owe me drinks, man,” Gladio raised his brows. They sank back down into an earnest frown when he turned to Rena. “Don’t keep him waiting, and don’t piss him off, okay?”

She took a deep breath and gave her answer on the exhale. “Alright.”

Rena turned and walked away, closing the gap between her and the captain with steady, powerful strides. Nyx watched her leave while Gladio summoned his sword again and swung it to hone his understanding of the already innate weight of it.

“The hell are you doing, man?”

Gladio raised an eyebrow and paused to look at the back of Nyx’s head, eyes lingering on the braids. “What d’you mean?”

Nyx turned around with his lips pressed firmly together, and fixed deep blue eyes on him as he shook his head. He held the kukris to his palms and gestured as he spoke.

“You’re throwing her into the damn den here. I mean, look at these guys. You got everything from orphans, addicts, refugees- fuck, _criminals_. She doesn’t belong here, even if she _can_ do it.”

“You don’t know her-.”

“I can _tell._ Got a feeling...”

“She gets along with you guys. Libs and Crowe seem to like her, Pelna too. Tredd-.”

“I appreciate her putting him on his ass. It’s been a while since anybody did that and it was overdue,” he admitted, holding up a hand.

Gladio snorted and leant against his broadsword. “They’d make a good couple.”

“Yeah? …Then why’d you butt in?”

A thick eyebrow raised, before being knitted with the other in a frown. He shrugged. “It was going too far and we needed to start sometime today. Got a schedule.”

“Uh-huh. Sure,” Nyx sang, keeping his expression as blank as possible. Gladio’s frown deepened.

“It’s not like that, man. That’d be like you and Crowe.”

Nyx made a face of disgust. “Fair point.”

“Yup. Now, you wanna decide who buys the next round?”

The sharp whoosh and crackling fizz of a warp burst behind him. Gladio turned on his heels, sword raised to hold back the kukris. A keen smile flashed on Nyx’s lips. The pair exchanged strikes; both had speed while power was met by accuracy. The most damage either suffered was a light tap with the flat of a blade as they slowed their rhythm down to an easy spar on solid ground.

It was steadfast under quiet boots and steps she forced herself to take. The ursine form of the captain was twenty feet away and already making her jaw clench and expression fix in place. He unzipped the wine-red leather of his raiment and shouldered a Glaive-shirt clad torso out of it. He hung it on the nearby weapon rack and tightened the sword belt around his hips.

Rena stood still and silent. Her ears twitched at every sound in the arena, and even to the intermittently blaring horns of the traffic beyond. She could feel his footsteps in the ground as he turned away from the stand and walked towards her. He stopped at arm’s length and mapped her. She did the same, but her eyes were at his before he met hers. Deep forest green, concealing and dark, were held by a greyer shade with all the power of a raging sea.

He spoke quietly in a voice forged in his throat as his thumb idly traced the twisted grip of his weapon.

“You know why you’re here?”

Rena willed the hairs on her neck to stand down and for her feet to stay firm. She locked her gaze onto his and replied in a voice steady with stubborn strength.

“Yes, sir.”

Drautos drew his sword and immediately bore down on her. He left no room for error, no time to think and no openings. This was instinct; as simple as breathing for him. Rena could do nothing but block, move faster than him and remember to breathe.

Steel rained down on her right. She met it with her own and held the blade, forcing it back to him against a centre of gravity higher than her own and a stare that only hardened. He yielded. Rena lurched forwards. She was caught by the back of her neck and hauled to his chest with a thud, a sword two inches from her throat.

Her elbow drove into his ribs with enough force to shove him away. She spun and met his blade again, holding them crossed in mid-air. The sea in his hues flashed dangerously. He forced her blade aside and reached for her arm. Rena crouched aside and cut through the air, aiming directly above his hip, but was stopped by an omnipresent blade. He pushed her backwards before she could fully regain her footing. Boots tried to dig into hard stone and instead grated across them tectonically. The blades were crossed directly between their eyes.

“Months with the Guard and all it’s done is domesticate you.”

He tried to force her sword away and strike again but was met by the same blade. She was quick; every movement dictated by the coiling instinct in her gut that bid her to run. Rena held firm and fought it as much as him.

Drautos’ attacks were set to an unforgiving pace. The sword met steel over and over again until sweat began to shine on his weathered brow. He spoke in the longer spaces that came after shoving her away or when she spun to escape the swift slice of his blade.

“If you want to win, you need to let go.”

Her sword flew towards his side, flat-side first. He guarded right. The distraction worked. Rena swivelled past him, driving an elbow below his ribs before emerging behind him, the flat of the blade pressed to the side of his neck. He turned slowly. Dark stubble grated against the sharp steel as she held her stance, trying to read his next move. She barely knew they were happening until his sword flashed dangerously close to her.

The two paced quietly, breathing through parted lips as they circled each other. Drautos burst forwards; a fury of brute strength and innate skill. Honed glaivesteel met a younger counterpart. The razor edges ran across each other and threw bright sparks between the blade. As some tinged blue, they reflected in his eyes and lit a maddening glint in the maelstrom eyes. _It’s working._ It was lightning striking the sea; the consequence of open space. She raced to catch his blade as he pushed her back.

Her heel dipped sickeningly. A ghostly arm reached from the depths of the arena’s central cavern and wrapped its smoking tendril fingers around her waist, pulling her back. Desperate for firm ground, under constant attack and growing increasingly aware of the depths awaiting her beyond, so dark she couldn’t see the bottom in broad daylight, Rena slipped.

She left her mind. Her strikes came harder, faster, changing quickly enough that the captain stopped pressing forward. Rena caught the blade against hers. She didn’t wait before shouldering past him and back into open space.

A rough hand buried in her hair. She was wrenched back, head craned to expose her throat as his blade pressed against it with a searing threat. It pushed harder. Rena brought her hands up to push her own blade against Drautos’. Steel had barely collided when a deep whisper loomed by her ear, as dark and threatening as distant thunder on the breeze.

“Such a disappointment,” he mused, chest rumbling through her back as he tugged harder. Mulled words poured against her neck, and she felt them stain her with wine and equally bloody intentions. The edge of his sword catching the pale skin of her throat. She was silent where he’d hoped for a helpless cry or quiet plea.

She was trapped; pinned by a sword to her neck to keep her down, and a strong thigh wedged between her own to stop her ducking away. Growling deeply, Rena turned in his grip and headbutted his cheek with enough force to blacken the edges of her vision. She shook her head and took a few steps away before facing the captain again.

A strong, stubble-coated jaw clicked as he stretched it. He stood perfectly still, as calm as before, with lightning strikes stirring in the growing storm of his eyes and lips parted to fill his lungs again. She stood opposite him and panted to catch her breath. Their eyes remained firmly fused on each other, even as steel dragged roughly against the masonry, putting a scratch into history and left its pale mark. He tapped the end of his sword against the line.

“Cross it.”

Rena kept her eyes on his and nodded once, turning the sword in her hand. He readied his own and took stance.

She struck with accuracy, speed and no small amount of force. Her steel tore towards shoulders, arms and sides to misguide him. He guarded well but was made to focus on the blurred edge of a newly sharpened sword. It only maddened the glint in his eyes and stoked flames in his belly. She guided his defences, putting them close enough to vital areas to be convincing, but far enough to lull him.

Steel grazed the side of his shirt, threatening to gut him if he didn’t move. She kept up her attacks. Light danced on the moving blades as they met, as temporarily blinding as dappled sunlight when running through a forest.

The increasing tempo of sword-song cut through the hearty laughs and quips of a more casual spar. Gladio pressed the flat of his broadsword down on Nyx, slowly forcing the Glaive to his knees. The rich chortle shaking Libertus as his oldest friend let out small, hoarse sounds as the young Shield all but crumpled him, was severed by the crescendo of sincere blades. Blue locked on brown and shone with mischief. Heads turned as eyes stayed fixed. Nyx gave a small nod. Darker hues flicked to the source of the sound and burned.

“Holy shit…” Crowe breathed, mouth falling open as she rose to her feet.

Libertus let out an incredulous laugh and leant forwards on the stone steps, shaking his head. The sun had witnessed it all. Their shadows were beneath them, and blade edges bright and flashing as they fought.

“Hey, c’mon man,” Nyx croaked, giving the broadsword a gentle push.

Gladio apologised and slung his sword over his shoulder, refocusing on the pair as they forced each other closer to the edge. Both fought with power and speed, deadly accuracy that they were instinctive enough to defend against. Rena left an opening that made amber eyes widen. As Drautos refused to take the opportunity, he jumped at the second. A double bluff. She blocked him and forced his weapon back, steel sparking a crystal blue as the edges cut along each other.

“Atta girl,” he muttered under his breath. Nyx turned to him mid-sentence and fought a rising smile from his face. “Keep tabs on that other arm.”

Her left hand caught his wrist as his sword began a downstroke. Gripping tight, she shouldered under his sternum and knocked him off balance, flipping him over her back.

Drautos’ used the momentum of the fall to drive his fist into her chest and bring her to the ground next to his landing spot with a resounding thud. Slammed onto her back and crushed by the void, the empty blue was quickly replaced by a furious captain with a hand around her throat. The cold steel edge tilted her chin up. Green hues stayed locked on their target. The sword pressed against her skin as she breathed. He searched the forested eyes for anything other than focus and was dissatisfied by the lack of shining fear, burning anger or blank shock. Drautos could see no further than she allowed, and that forest was impenetrable.

Bettering his hold on her, he pressed his knee into her stomach and forced his leg between hers. He squeezed her throat as she exhaled. The parted lips fell silent and still. A racing pulse that hammered through his leather gloves stole his own breath.

Rena’s hand slipped down.

Distracted by her strength, even when motionless, Drautos kept his guard up but it wasn’t fast enough. Her knee drove into his hip, deadening his leg and shifting her off him to allow her hand to pass. The limp weight threw his balance. Rena dropped her sword and fixed a hand in his hair.

Gladio took a step forwards when her weapon clattered against the masonry.

“ _Don’t,_ man,” was all that came from a muffled voice; a blur of dark grey beside him.

She tore him away and pushed against the rough stone. Drautos landed flat on his back, pinned by a knee on his numb leg and the sharp edge of a blade against his roughly stubbled throat. Her empty sword hand had forced his own to the ground with enough force for him to release the blade.

The young Shield caught sight of the hunting knife and lunged forwards again, only for a hand to press firmly against his chest. They spoke, but he didn’t listen. He just stopped.

Drautos glared at her. She drew steady breaths through gritted teeth despite his grip, dark brows knitting into a deep frown. His hand was still on her throat. He let go. The first lungful of air was full of his scent; black pepper, leather, sweat and charred herbs.

It was knocked clean out of her when he lurched upwards and slammed her down onto her back with a brutal thud. Bright steel flashed in the sunlight.

He pinned her with his sheer size and weight, caging all of her limbs and making sure she thought twice about moving. Powerful thighs surrounded her own. Her hands were pinned underneath her back and her throat was held in his grasp again. A rich note was added to their scents. It fell heavy onto pale cheeks as she pulled soft features into a vicious snarl. He mirrored it and ripped at the fresh cut on his face; clean but deep, she’d slit him from the forehead, along the brow and down across his left cheek.

Gladiolus froze, eyes wide and mouth open.

He’d sharpened it himself. The clip-point he’d dulled with a number of idle tasks had been honed back to a formidable point. Flashing like a dog’s tooth in the sunlight, the hunting knife was in Drautos’ hand, and it was being held half an inch from her eye.

_Don’t move._

Rena held her feral expression, locking on Drautos with her own intent. His hand tightened around her throat until cartilage cracked against his palm. He fixed on her with a face like thunder as her peripheral began to seep into black.

_“Stay. Down.”_

The words came rough through gritted teeth. The sea-storm eyes followed his words with a single silent threat. Covered in blood, she bared her teeth, a savage growl leaving her throat, defying the crushing hand that tried to strangle it.

Steel flashed in the sunlight and blinded Gladio as his gasp hit the back of his throat. A raw scream ripped through his mind. He forced himself to look at her, at an embedded knife slick with clear fluid oozing thickly over her cheek, and the man who’d forced her to learn her lesson.

She was so still.

The knife was biting into the masonry, into the very line his sword had scarred the stonework with. Gladio stepped to the side to see beyond it. The pale cheek, half coated with blood, had a fresh pearlescent line carved over the cheekbone. When the flesh finally thawed like snow and filled the slit with fresh blood, Gladio began to breathe again.

“That’s an order,” he seethed, glaring at the eyes that hadn’t even flinched.

He gave her throat a final hard shove into the stonework before standing up and marching away, slightly hindered by the dead leg. Blood poured warmly over his eye and cheek, soaking into the stubbled skin of his powerful neck and training shirt.

Rena sat upright, forearms rested on knees, and breathed a hoarse sigh. She stood turned towards the central void, gathered her sword from the edge and spat the metallic taste from her mouth into the depths. Rena walked on steady legs, made warm by fatigue, towards the stone steps. Furthest from the group, Gladio met her first. Thick brows knitted together.

Her face was covered in blood, some her own and some Drautos’. The fresh cut on her cheek was supplying a steady flow over the sticky mess staining her skin. Her hair was soaked at the edges by the dark stains of exertion and blood. She was slick with sweat, shoulders grazed by the stonework and threads pulled loose over her clothes.

“You okay?” he asked, raising furrowed eyebrows.

“Yeah, I’m-,” Rena paused to cough the roughness from her voice, and hard enough to hear the cartilage crack out again. “I’m alright. You?”

Gladio let out a slow exhale and shook his head as he began to walk beside her. “You had us pretty damn-.”

“Hey there, honeybuns,” a sharp lilt arrived.

Tredd walked backwards, a smirk extended by his scar. A chestnut eye winked as he jutted his chin out.

“Think you can handle all this?”

Rena didn’t miss a beat. “Depends. If you can fit it in one hand, you can keep it.”

He slipped behind her and whipped the blood red rag from her pocket. Tredd wrapped it around his fist and looped back to her side, walking backwards as Gladio shook his head with a snort. He held out the fabric.

“You got a little something-something on your face, there.”

She shook her head at him gently. “Keep it; it’s your colour.”

He gasped in mock surprise and clutched the fabric to his chest. Large chestnut eyes batted their auburn eyelashes. “You really mean it?”

“Fuck off please, Tredd,” she smirked.

“After the show you just gave us, you got it, sweetcheeks,” he winked again, tossing his knife through an archway and warping out of the arena.

Gladio snorted softly and turned to Rena as they walked towards the other Glaives. She untied her hair and let it fall over the back of her neck. The warmth of a coming bruise was brewing under the skin, threatening to dye her thunderous purples and blues.

“So, no tail-chasing?”

“Nah,” she shook her head. Her vague attempt to tame the flyaway curls, some so distressed they’d loosened into entire locks of frizz, was unsuccessful. “He’s all cock and no balls.”

His brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

She snorted and finally looked him in the eye again. “I’ll let you think about that one.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Crowe mused quietly, running her eyes over the bloodied mess that was Rena. She frowned gently over expressive brown eyes. “You did good, standing up to all that.”

“I’ll say!” Libertus interjected, stepping forwards to hand her the worn leather rucksack. She gave her thanks quickly. “Kid, I’ve never seen somebody take on Cap. Yeah, okay, you didn’t _win_ but-.”

“Neither did he,” Nyx added. He shook his head at the bloodstained face and torn knees of her training leggings. “You can kick some major ass, girl.”

“Or _captain_ ass-.”

“Fuck off, Tredd!” was chorused by the three glaives.

“I’m fucking off! Sheesh!”

“She’s had practice,” a rough voice confirmed, sure as the earth beneath their feet. He watched as she crouched down and began to dig in the bag. “Hell of a-.”

The steady, unnoticed beat of heavy boots made itself know when it stopped abruptly. The Glaives shot to attention. Rena left the rucksack and stood, turning around to the Captain.

The bleeding had stemmed. New skin was already forming as the faint, clean scent of a potion wafted from him. The challenging glint he’d held in his eyes had faded, dampened by the bitter scent of blood, leaving his impassive hues a greyish green.

“You will not be joining the Glaive,” he informed, tone even and firm. “You failed to show the proper capabilities. Instead, you demonstrated a lack of respect for your superiors and open defiance. The Marshal will be briefed on your performance today. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Rena said, keeping her voice as amorphous as possible and her face tamed in an unreadable, hard expression.

“ _Captain,”_ he corrected, his tone sparking like hot iron struck by a hammer.

_With all due respect, sir, I’m in the Guard, not the Glaive. You’re not my captain._

_Don’t give him an excuse. Last thing you need is discharged._

_Don’t indulge him._

She stayed silent.

Heavy footsteps descended the steps into the arena, eventually stopping on the same level as Rena. He took sight of young, bloodstained skin, wild hair and wilder eyes. Her focus wandered from his eyes in small, fleeting glances. Thick, dark hair cut short; eyebrows that began bold and grew sparse; scarred lips of a soft shade that defied the rest of him. There were other scars too; she was not the first to mark him, but she had cut deep. Rena’s eyes took in the fine detail of her creation.

“It’s a shame.”

“I don’t think the Glaive’s for me, sir.”

He closed the gap between them and loomed over her. Rena held firm.

“If only you’d better harnessed your damned stubbornness into determination. A lesson to take with you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do _not_ come back for another,” he threatened. Drautos turned away from her, torso first, before looking at some of his finest. “Aren’t you three on guard duty?”

Affirmatives were given as the three raced up the steps and to their respective obligations perching on the Citadel walls. The captain left with one final exhale towards Rena, a nod to Gladiolus and then he was gone.

Alone in the arena, Rena plucked a bottle of water from her bag and unscrewed the cap. Gladio sat on the steps, calloused hands feeling the vibrations of traffic through the stone under his touch and feeling the city continue even though it paused here. The quiet spatter of water from his side drew his attention.

Rena was, slowly but steadily, rinsing the blood from her face with palmfuls of lukewarm water and a dark blue rag. The quiet patter of droplets on the stone gave him a rhythm to breathe by. He stretched his legs out and sat back. He was just beginning to zone out, head lolling heavily, when the sharp scream and swift sound of a knife being driven into the ground played in his head.

“The hell were you thinking?”

Rena sighed and shook her head lightly, swiping the water from her face with hand bound tight enough to stop it shaking. “I wasn’t.”

“You pulled a knife on him! You brought a _knife_ to a sword fight,” he shrugged, brows furrowed at her. “It’s not a gun, but-.”

“I didn’t think I was going to use it.”

_Just wanted it there._

Her voice was quiet enough to throw a hoarse coat over the smooth tone. Gladio shook his head and turned to her. Perched a foot away from him on the steps, forearms resting on her knees, she steadied herself and swept stray hair back from her face. Green eyes rested on the line she’d been given, and all but the top of her head had crossed.

Hardened amber flicked to the bound hands that never stopped moving, remembering the bloody mess she’d made of them. His gaze travelled up her arms, over old scars, fresh grazes weeping clear fluid and crusted with fine grit. The bruises he didn’t remember giving her dyed her forearms and shoulders an aching blue. Despite it all, she was quietly strong. Enduring.

Gladio watched her for any hint of expression she might share. He was quickly distracted by the fresh slice on her cheekbone. Two inches long and deeper than it seemed, it lazily spilled red over her skin as the blood blackened at the wound. A sound as sharp as her knife ripped through him again.

“Did you scream?”

She turned and shook her head. “No?”

“Nah, just thought I heard somebody scream. Hearing things,” he waved dismissively, pulling his focus to the glassy skyscrapers on the other side of a rough stone wall.

“Never scream. Then they know it’s working.”

Gladio turned back to her with knitted brows. “You just need to-.”

“Watch my mouth. Show respect. All that.”

He shook his head and looked around the training arena with a sigh that never left his throat, coming to a warm rumble before dying away. The tired tone had pushed out into the still air as quietly as a boat from the dock. When the ripples washed back to him, he echoed with words that sent his own boat into the drifting quiet.

“Lack of respect isn’t the same as disrespect.”

Casting his eyes back to her, he waited for a response. She sighed and lowered her head, sweeping messy hair back with fingers that stopped to massage the sparking pull another had given her scalp. She left her hair piled on her left shoulder, right side bare to him. Rena lifted her head again and fixed on a false horizon of concrete and glass. Brown eyes glanced between the cut and her shoulders. Her world weighed heavy on them, but she made it seem as light as all the other freckles the sun had given her over the years.

Gladio had watched worlds weigh from his vantage point for years. They were always a heavy, no matter the breadth of shoulders they rested on. Some stood up well to the pressure, admitted it weighed a little, and only fractionally cracked on their way to becoming diamonds. Others pretended they didn’t have one.

Iris liked to do that. To bound and spring and stand as tall as she could until, eventually, it came crashing down on her in a quiet moment. She’d hide from him, but he’d always find her. Round brown eyes swimming with worries that broke his heart every time they spilled over her cheeks. The only thing that could hold her up was an arm across the shoulders and the silent reassurance of someone being there, in body and soul.

He didn’t know the weight of others’ worlds, but he knew his own could cripple him.

Moving his gaze to her face, her eyes still fixed on a horizon she wasn’t ready to call home, he tried to see how she shouldered her world. Rena was neither showing it, nor pretending it didn’t exist. She’d grown around it, used it to hold herself up, and become inosculate; a tree that had engulfed the moon, but let it glow for others’ sake. Rena was stubborn but accepting. His hand parted from the sun-warmed stone.

_Don’t touch her._

His movements and thoughts were stilled by the voice as smooth as fresh water.

“I didn’t mean to pull the knife on him, alright? I wasn’t going to do anything. I just wanted him to stop.”

Gladio stayed still, pinned when she turned over her shoulder and watched with dark, careful eyes. He sighed and spoke quietly.

“Drautos is… Once he gets in the ring, he doesn’t stop. He’ll get as close to killing you as he can. Fear’s a tactic for him, and he knows how to use it. You surprised him, he didn’t like it but once he gets into that space, he’s won’t stop. He turns into an animal. You’ve been hunting how many years now? _You_ , of all people, should understand that.”

Softly-spoken and shared in a rare moment when his own words made as much sense to him as those he read, Gladio’s voice had rumbled quiet but close, like thunder overhead; introducing rain and matching its gentler impacts with a low timbre. They hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. If anything, they were seeping into her skin like raindrops.

Rena showed him nothing, but he could’ve sworn her eyes were greener.

“Alright.”

He nodded and kept his gaze fixed on hers. “Alright. Now, let’s go before I get my ass kicked too.”

A quiet snort of laughter left her.

“Sure you’re not gonna get it kicked when we get back?”

“At least it’d be you kicking it.”

Gladio stood and offered his hand, which she politely refused with a quick wave of her own as Rena pulled herself to her feet and shouldered into her rucksack.

“I can’t let anyone else do it. They’d either fuck it up or kill you,” she said simply, beginning to relax as she let her eyes meet his. They glowed like amber struck by sunlight and creased with a barked laugh.

“Is that right?” he asked, shaking the laugh from his head though the grin remained as he tugged the cap onto his head. They began to climb the steps from the arena and let the sun warm their backs. A breeze wicked cool air from the stone recesses ahead, and brought welcome relief from the roasting, still air of the open space.

“Mhm. It’s a fine art, kicking your ass,” Rena said, tone carrying the sincere lilt that could only mean sarcasm.

He saw it. The momentary flick of eyes that left his, though found their new target only inches away. A hand flew towards his face. He snatched the hat and held it high, out of her reach by at least a foot.

“Ahaha! Gotcha!”

“Oh yeah?”

Rena jumped, one hand on his shoulder for leverage and plucked it from his hand.

“Oh, for-,” he growled, sprinting after her as she raced back through the halls. “Hey! You’ll get us caught! Then we both get an ass kicking!”

“That’s what friends are for, big man!”


	7. Ignition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being tried against the Kingsglaive, Rena's next moves within the Lucian forces are all but decided for her. Whilst the powers that be move their pieces, more spontaneous things are beginning to happen down on the board...

She stilled herself against an unstoppable city. Under a shimmering chiffon of the royal magic that danced with all the weight of velvet, Insomnia pulsed in its roads. The red of brake lights flowed from the Citadel like veins, only showing themselves when they were stopped by another light. Arteries, brighter and more forceful, supplied the heart of the city with tonight’s guests. Everything always looked more powerful when it rushed towards her.

The softer movements of the hard landscape were held in breezes, sweeping up from the streets and bringing the invisible to her eyes. Scents threw depth through the distances. Warm tarmac, the tinged burn of clutches by clumsy drivers and the sour dust of pollution were the base note. Closer sources provided the accents tonight. The dry headiness of champagne drifted from the empty glass in her hand. The lights behind her flooded the balcony with the sweet intangibility of strong perfumes and cutting colognes. The note of vanilla was new.

Rena took a deeper draw and disguised it as a settling breath, something to hold on to. Leather polish. Heat. The acrid tinge of petrol cut through. Her eyes met the stars and thanked them at the bitter, earthy note of coffee.

“Are you alright?” the familiar, creamy tone asked.

“Yep. You?”

“Other than being hounded by a hotel mogul from Galdin with damnable taste in silk ties and little respect for conversational boundaries in polite company, yes,” he nodded, standing on her right to observe the city. He sighed. “Yes, I’m quite well.”

“Take it you’re not so keen on the whole big party thing?”

She raised an eyebrow, turning to meet a lighter shade behind glass walls that reflected the stars, both false and, rarely, real. A small smile quirked at his pale lips. He glanced at the empty glass as she trapped the stem between two fingers, sliding it back and forth over the polished marble railing. Her hand shot away when a gloved one approached. He gently pinched the slender bowl of cool glass. Ignis placed it delicately at his other side and fixed his eyes on her.

“Make no mistake, events such as this are a more delicate matter than one might think. One slip of the tongue, verbally or otherwise, to the wrong person and you’ve got yourself a scandal by breakfast,” he mused bitterly. A deep breath of evening air laced his being with composure again, smoothing the arch from his back. “ _This_ is actually a rather small occasion. It follows on from the ceremony earlier, I assume you were-.”

“On duty,” Rena cocked her head, and watched as screaming blue lights tore through the city’s lifeblood.

“Aren’t we always?” he pondered, turning to face the brightly lit hall again. It cast fine features in harsh light and revealed the fine grains of sandy stubble lining his sharp jaw. “It was the swearing ceremony. Something you might’ve enjoyed.”

“Oh, ha ha,” she returned his humour with sarcasm. It had loosened her shoulders nonetheless. “Who was swearing in this time?”

“The marshal and captains. Retaking their oaths. They do so annually to represent the continued loyalty of the Guard, Glaive and their collective force under the marshal’s control.”

“Fair enough,” she tilted her head.

Light filled and shone molten in the new scar. It caught Ignis’ eye and he watched, before tearing his focus back to the glowing, lively hall deemed suitable for the festivities. Bright crystal chandeliers were the ruling presence of the high ceilings. Under them, and on marble floor they threatened to smash themselves on with every high note and heavy close of the doors, a hundred or so people were basking in the pleasures of selected wines, fine garments and conversations accented by the flick of a hand bearing a heavy watch or a laugh through a jewelled throat. Lucian black remained the ruling colour, but these magpies had taste and were willing to show it.

A piano played in the rare lulls. Among the well-tailored suits and finely-made dresses, a chartreuse silk tie made an appearance. Ignis’ lips parted with a soft inhale.

“I wondered if you might-.”

“Like another glass of champagne but find myself in need of an escort so you can conveniently avoid your hotelier?” she asked, already looking at him. Behind the deadpan expression she gave him, a laugh was coiling up. Jade eyes narrowed at her, their golden flecks glittering in the brighter light.

“Something along those lines, yes.”

“Mr Scientia, I think such a plan can be arranged and carried out,” Rena mused, turning to him. Half of her face was cast in the same bubbly hues of the party, the other shining pale and blue in the city’s comparative dimness.

“Is that so, Miss Lauritas?”

He turned and straightened the sleeves of his suit jacket before offering her an arm. She matched his wry smile. Rena reached past his arm, plucked the empty glass from the railing and faced the brighter surroundings.

“With immediate effect, I should think,” she nodded, gesturing to him with the glass and walking back into the fray.

Once inside and fully cast in the chandelier’s glow, she moved to sweep a hand through hair that was tied away, twisted into a braid and coiled into a bun, a few wispy tendrils, separated from their usual curls, lingered stray. She breathed a sigh and kept her eyes open. Ignis matched her pace as she weaved through the room, careful to intercept a circulating waiter and pluck two flutes of champagne, beaded with pearlescent bubbles. After two pairs of green eyes swept the room and deemed themselves a safe distance from anything remotely chartreuse, she held her glass out to Ignis’ with a subtle smirk.

“To your health and excellence.”

“And yours,” she toasted, meeting his glass with the quiet singing of the glass against its sibling. When Ignis raised the glass to his lips and then let it sink back down, she sighed. “Really? You’ve still got to drive?”

“Noct has decided he’d like to sleep in his own bed tonight, or tomorrow morning, despite his Citadel quarters still being maintained.”

“Inconsiderate.”

“Quite,” he said, letting the cool glass balance in his hand.

The stem was thinner than the pen that had been nestled, then crushed, in the grip of slender fingers today. That same cursed object would be present tomorrow as he covered miles with a fountain pen and scratched his road into existence with as much ink as it took. Letters haunted his glasses until they formed words of their own. Sometimes his subconscious spelling would prompt him of important events, reveal a missing ingredient or simply give names. Tonight, and not for the first time, the cursive formed an expletive. His brows lowered first at himself, then at his quiet company.

“I must say, your behaviour has been nothing short of impressive this evening.”

“Ignis. I hid on a balcony for forty minutes and I’ve just decided that I’m leaving in the next ten.”

Ignis wrestled what would’ve been a wider smile into a wry twist of the lips. “I was referring your rather colourful vocabulary.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said, cocking an eyebrow.

He huffed a laugh and plucked a glass of iced water from a passing tray. Only then did he toast. The pair watched as others filled their silence with restrained laughs and conversations kept on the right side of decent. Ignis read lips as well as he did words and was quickly hooked into the conversations of others as their twisting mouths revealed what they wanted known. The subtle flashes of their expressions from polite and interested unveiled what they didn’t.

“Can wrap my tongue around just about anything.”

“Careful now,” he warned, drowning a wry smile in a sip of bitter sparkling water. “You’ll get yourself a reputation. Or, rather, more of a reputation.”

A laugh came through her nose as single strong breath as she sipped wine too dry for her tastes. Still, if it kept the shaking of scarred hands to a minimum, it’d do.

“You’ve made quite the name for yourself, you know. Amongst the ranks, anyway. You were hailed as the next _immortal.”_

“Far from it,” Rena squeezed the glass in her hand to test its strength. An idle thumb ran over the smooth surface, pushing down to form a drip from the condensation. “Would’ve thought last week proved that.”

“It proved many things. From what I heard, you didn’t surrender to the captain. Merely… changed your mind,” he pulled his eyes from the crowd of guests to look at her. Only a few inches shorter than him, and holding true to her height, a darker shade glanced at the ground before fixing level with his own.

“I could’ve changed it a lot sooner,” she admitted. “but then I wouldn’t have learned anything.”

“Very wise.”

Her eyebrows rose and fell. Rena swept the room again before focusing on her champagne and the golden glint it cast over skin that just didn’t suit it. The smooth fabric slipped against her skin, threatening to fall away and expose her for what she was; heathen, outsider, nothing. She finished the glass, if only to rid herself of the ghost of luxury; a tiny dragon curled on her hand with a warm belly but sharp claws. Eyes sought distraction as the ambrosia of wealth crawled down her throat. It was strong enough to heat but lacked the slick and lustful smokiness of stronger drinks that began with harsh kisses and ended with a warm belly and loss of self matched only by debauchery. Her sailing focus snagged on thorns.

The crown lurked in frost. It was a heavier dragon, she had no doubt. It whispered in silence but was heard roaring by its bearer. Bright eyed yet pale, King Regis spoke through a warm smile to his marshal.

“I trust the introduction went well?”

Rena filled her lungs but spoke quietly. “As well as it could’ve. No special attention, thank f- the gods.”

“You would’ve made a fine Glaive,” he assured. “I’m sure His Majesty would’ve been delighted to have you in his ranks.”

“And Drautos? Not so much,” she shrugged, turning the stem of the flute between finger and thumb. Ignis took a deep breath and followed her gaze to the monarch amongst old friends.

“How did he strike you?”

The collar of the dress tightened around her throat. “Which one?”

“The king.”

She took a moment to think; to translate the pulses of unnameable forces into words. He’d looked her in the eye. She’d bowed alongside the others, spoken when spoken to and politely so. Regis was the most important person she’d ever met, and yet he breathed, blinked, fought smiles and eye rolls. He was more kindly than kingly. He was human.

“Merry, mischievous even, but… melancholy,” she fought out, finally summarising the gentle ripples he’d made on her still mind. They’d reached the shores of consciousness and made the gravel speak. When Ignis didn’t reply, Rena turned her gaze to him.

Jade eyes were watching her, bright and lush as spring grass. “…Astounding.”

Her brows pinched together, grip tightening on the spinning glass in her hand.

“Few that have met him once observe to that depth. You really do have remarkable instinct,” Ignis spoke quietly as he shook his head. He sipped the bitter water and felt it burn down his throat, sobering him and hoping it would quieten the struck chord.

“Needed to. Still need to. Probably going to need them for some time yet.”

Ignis smiled gently and shook his head again. He readjusted his glasses, inhaled the composure her words had knocked from him and observed her. Rena’s eyes locked on anything moving too fast or slow to be natural. Such movements were exaggerations, exclamations, lingering touches and the graceful dances set to the time of conversation. Sharper sounds were captured by ears hidden under dark hair. Their pulls could still be seen, if one looked carefully. She followed noises around the room. Amongst the gently shifting sands of gilded company, something refused to move and made too little sound to be innocent.

“Psst! Specs!”

Ignis’ eyes immediately narrowed.

“Yes?”

Dark hair appeared in their peripherals. They stood firm as he hid behind them, large blue eyes searching the room.

“I think I had a little too much.”

Ignis sighed from deep in an elegant throat. “Oh, really?”

“Maybe. Possibly. Kinda. Yeah. I dunno. Look, can you take me home before- pfff _take me home_ , heh- before I do something stupid?”

“Such as?”

“Say something horrible and _wait a second, she’s in a dress.”_

“Evening, your highness,” she deadpanned. Rena continued in a low mutter. “That was my reaction, too.”

“I-I mean-! You look- I just-.”

“Alright, before you say something you regret, I suggest we just-,” Ignis paused to take a breath, needing it to still himself. “Sharpen up. If anyone asks, you simply need some air and to quickly stretch your legs. With luck, you’ll sober up within an hour.”

Rena turned to her side, facing Ignis’ sharp profile as she addressed the bright eyes hiding behind dark hair. “How many drinks have you had?”

Noctis puffed his cheeks out, showing the pale skin that had bloomed in the heat and haze of alcohol. “Three or four.”

“In the last hour?”

“Think so.”

She brought her focus to Ignis as he stared tiredly at a chandelier, sharp jaw clenched and breathing artificially managed.

“Balcony. Keeps him close if anyone needs him. If he pukes it can go over the edge-.”

Noctis gagged at the mention.

“- and if not, air should do the trick. It’s hit him all at once, that’s all.”

Turning further over her shoulder, she locked on the prince as he sank into hunched shoulders. She caught a snort in her throat and maintained an impassive expression as usually withdrawn blue eyes blinked their dark lashes heavily. The sapphire tones flicked from their potential saviour to the one that had advised him. He met the deep green before drifting. Faint brows lowered behind their wispy curtains as he caught on the fresh scar.

“What happened to your face?”

“And off we go,” Ignis decided briskly, placing a firm but elegant hand on the prince’s elbow and leading him through the sparkling fray, to the deep navy of the city.

Rena smirked briefly at the usually stiff prince turned fluid. Even as the fresh scar drew tight, she only moved her gaze to the floor. Twiddling the empty glass in her hand, she began to search for her escape route and found the exits to be blocked by faces she knew. Castor Talo was one of them, tanned and smiling crookedly as a sleek black updo captured his attentions. She willed the young woman to hold his watchful caramel eyes for more than a few minutes; long enough to allow her to pass unnoticed.

The glass buzzed lightly in her hand. Rena watched as the final drop of liquid courage trembled, then again, then stopped. A light breeze passed over the back of her neck. She fought to keep her shoulders loose and jaw unclenched. Thick and bold, the scent passed her as she cast her eyes back to the large windows. Warm leather with salt-rubbed sage made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Thought you’d have bolted an hour ago.”

“Evening, Amicitia.”

He drew level with her, watching as Ignis finally managed to steer Noctis out into the cooler air of the evening. Gladio kept his face forwards, but curious hues flicked to his side. Dark hair was beyond tamed; it was pulled as taut as her nerves and forced into formation. He barely got past the blackened lashes before his Adam’s apple bobbed with a strangled laugh. Caught by the sharp focus of green eyes, he tore his gaze back to the room.

“I know,” she nodded, idly stroking the glass in her hand. “First mistake was telling Prompto.”

“That explains the face,” he mused, keeping his eyes forward. “The dress, though…”

“Can’t wait for this one.”

Gladio spoke through a smirk, furrowing his brows in mock dramatics and letting the twist of his mouth lilt his words.

“Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”

“Just keep digging,” she shook her head, watching as a group nearby bubbled into laughter at one of their blushing members. “and I kick your balls into your ass.”

He glanced down, before looking back up with a small cough and setting his eyes on the far side of the room.

“In those shoes?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Rena sighed as she turned her head to be met by a broad smile. “That shit-eating grin can fuck off too.”

He sucked a breath through his teeth before frowning at her. “Language.”

“Balls. Up ass. Kicked. Understand?”

“Well, it’d be a new one for me,” he conceded. “Think you can make it happen tomorrow morning?”

“Can fucking do.”

“There’s the attitude we run the Guard on,” Gladio nodded once, chest puffing out against the heavy slate grey and black of his formal uniform as he clasped his hands behind his back.

His focus drifted to the constant movement of an otherwise still person. Her fingers repeatedly twisted with each other, manoeuvring the empty flute and passing between scarred knuckles. They worked at a faster rhythm, desperate to hide the hands that were too roughened for such company, and for such an age. He glanced up. Jaw clenched, she drew measured breaths too precise to be natural as impassive eyes never fixed on one point for more than a second. Casting dark eyes to the windows and relishing in the relief the darker blue provided from bright lights, he breathed a sigh.

“I’ll cover for you.”

She met his sideways glance with furrowed brows. Green eyes narrowed and made him smirk.

“… What’s the catch?”

“No catch,” he assured, raising his eyebrows. “You’re gonna need some sleep if you’re gonna kick my ass tomorrow. It’s actually a pretty good excuse. _Dedication to duty_ , and all.”

Broad shoulders shrugged. Rena turned back to the room and shook her head.

“Yeah, what’s the catch?”

“Maybe _don’t_ kick my balls into my ass tomorrow?” he asked, cocking a brow and watching for any hints.

She remained unreadable as she turned the glass in her hand. After a few moments she breathed a sigh through her nose. Gladio led his expression with a raised eyebrow. The quietly rough voice left him as little more than a beat formed into a word.

“Deal?”

It was returned by a smoother tone.

“Deal.”

“Okay, let’s get you out of here, you’re making the place look messy,” Gladio confirmed, unclasping his hands and offering his arm.

“You want it broken?”

“No thanks,” he drawled, retracting his arm immediately. “What’s the plan, ma’am?”

She slowly puffed out a breath, eyes darting over a few fixed points in the room.

“I’m gonna go say bye to Ignis, and make sure he hasn’t throttled Princess, can you…” she began, leaning back to peer behind Gladio at the door. The guard was still there. “Distract Castor when I leave the balcony?”

“Any specs as to how?”

“I don’t know. Just talk to him. If that doesn’t work, flirt with the girl he’s talking to.”

“Got it.”

She turned back to face the party. People shifted like sand, hard and shining in the bright light. Glasses clinked and set tiny molten dragons over the smooth hands holding them. They belonged here; all coins in a chest, part of the greater wealth of the Crown City. Far from home and thoroughly out of her element, Rena was a freshwater fish in the glittering salt of the sea. Their dry waters and vibrant colours could only sustain her for so long.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” she nodded. “Let’s go.”

* * *

The softening glow of an overcast day and air full of sea mist wrapped her in a cool embrace. Under a pale, clouded sky, the east side’s bricks were damp and smoothed of their dust. At least the weeds were getting watered.

Rena put in her headphones and walked.

As she passed through the streets, deafened to the city, she dragged the morning behind her and caught glimpses of the world getting started in her wake. At first she passed dock workers and shipbuilders, some returning from a shift and other just beginning. Buildings got taller; glass cleaner; pavements smoother under striding boots. Suited and rushing, they left their homes and ducked into taxis or ran to catch buses. The tailoring improved as she closed in on the restless heart of the city. It pulsed with traffic lights and screens; flowed with people that didn’t get out of the way. Until they caught sight of her, that was.

_Walk like you’ve just killed someone, have one more to kill today, but still need to make it to dinner at five_ , had been Ignis’ advice.

She dodged half, was dodged by the rest, and checked the time on her phone as she turned a corner. Faced by a stroller and a frayed looking father, she ducked into an alcove and waited for them to pass. The cool marble was pale and well sculpted. Rena craned her neck and peered up at the statue. One of the monarchs, steadily preserved in stone and left in its place as a symbol of devotion from king to country, of protection and the lessons they taught, and were taught, when they held the throne.

Rena patted the marble once and continued on her weaving way. After turning another corner and bouncing restlessly while the lights changed, the Citadel came into view. Tall, glitteringly bright and ever-poised over her city, it stood alongside the Crownsguard headquarters.

Warmth emanated from the dark walnut door. It had faced the sun and already admitted dozens. She pulled the handle and slipped into the bright cavern of the foyer. Dark grey and black marched against the cool marble. It was surreal. An almost entirely white room with a glass ceiling holding back a softer sky. Everyone was a stain here; bloodied creatures in a ghost world.

She climbed the stairs and followed corridors as they darkened and welcomed her to dimmer depths. Others met her with nods as they began their duties for the day. Most had evening training; preferring not to spend a day on their feet after a morning session. Rena liked to train before the air became too hot and bright, and she’d spent more than a day on tired legs before. Her hand met the door of the locker room and pushed. Someone yanked it open from the other side and shook their head.

“None left.”

She shook her head at the lack of lockers and backed away to let them out.

_Fine._

The corridors brightened and smoothed as she moved further into the training side of headquarters. The long expanses of dark wood floor and plastered walls were lined with half a dozen doors that led to the training halls beyond. She carefully pushed into the usual and breathed in the scent of lemon oil.

The hall itself was dim, lit only by the archways on one of the walls. When she paused her music and wrapped the headphones away, she caught the end of a bubbling laugh. Squinting at the blank white of the morning beyond, cool air swept through the openings and passed over her like silk scarves. She passed through and out into the thrum of the city below.

Once her eyes adjusted to the citadel’s rooftop training paddocks, a flash of yellow flew past her. Prompto had leapt clear through the air, rolled his landing and now stood, arms outstretched. Rena blinked. He pointed his finger guns before winking with a crooked smile.

“Mornin’!”

“Morning.”

A darker figure appeared alongside the chaotic blond. The bouncing Prompto had paired his training gear with a vivid buttercup-yellow hoodie that burned to look at. Gladio pointed his thumb to the twitching young man at his side.

“Blondie had a little caffeine,”

“Yeah? When?” she asked, fractionally narrowing her eyes at a pair of baby blues that just couldn’t stop. He burst into an answer.

“Bout eight hours ago! It was only one coffee so I don’t really understand why it’s doing this but it’s great, I get why Iggy drinks it. This stuff’s amazing, I just- I mean, I love it, it’s so good…”

“Oh… fuck.”

“Yeah,” Gladio said slowly, eyes mapping the cubic horizon of the city centre.

Dark brows drew together before meeting an amber gaze. “Why’s he _here_? Did he just wash up, or?”

“Noct called him in. Wants to teach him something.”

“Alright, and Noctis is where?”

“Ahh, somewhere down there,” he shrugged, gesturing to the edge of the rooftop. Long legs brought him there in a dozen strides. He leant his forearms on the edge and watched the city begin its day under every head and car bonnet bustling below.

“So… the Royal Shield has no idea where the Prince is-.”

“I do, he’s _somewhere_ down there.”

“- and that’s just fine because you know what? Things always turn up when you’re not looking for them.”

“Hey, _shield._ Not babysitter,” he pointed over his shoulder at her, still fixed on the horizon. “And… he’s right _there_.”

A tanned finger pointed down at the stream of traffic flowing towards the Citadel before being split, like a stream around a rock. She padded forward silently and ran her eyes over the roads encrusted with vehicles of every shape, size and colour. Hands pushed against the waist-height wall to keep herself steady.

“The grey one,” he told her, still tracking it with his index.

“I can see about fifty grey ones. C’mon, narrow it down.”

“Okay, follow that building, down to the road and about… two inches left of that,” Gladio directed quietly, leaning to the right. She stayed still, only leaning forwards when his shoulder brushed the back of hers. He swapped to the other hand and led the pair of sharp eyes closer.

“Found them.”

“Yep,” he nodded, resting his hand on the railing.

A sweet, clean scent, earthy with heady florals and light as a breeze met him. He deepened his breath, turning his head to follow it. It dropped from the air as soon as it had arrived. Then the breeze kicked up again, cool sea air laced with the city’s residue. Honey. With every sweeping hand the wind combed through her hair, it brought honey.

Yellow flashed at her side.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

Prompto careered towards the railing, hitting it with enough force that all but his legs crossed the narrow threshold between him and several hundred feet of nothing. He was caught and held back. Rena released the fistful of his hoodie she’d taken and shook her head.

“Prom, try not to throw yourself from a building.”

He backed away from the edge with a nervous smile, hands buried in the pocket of a hoodie so big it came to his mid-thigh. He stretched out the peeling chocobo motif on the chest with his heavy hands and watched with wide cosmic eyes.

“Y-yeah. I’ll, uh, try not to. Did you guys get breakfast already? I’m starving. You wanna go get something to- _woah.”_

Two sets of dark brows descended into curious frowns as a paler pair shot up.

“I gotta get this.”

Prompto darted away, skidding to a halt by his backpack and digging out his camera. Gladio turned back to view the traffic below with a shrug.

“It’ll be that,” she said, nodding towards the horizon.

The sun had risen enough for it’s light to not only be reflected by the thick blanket of clouds, but for it to peek under it, meeting the sleepless metropolis with a single, curious, apricot eye. The rise itself pared city from sky, grey from grey, as a steady blade of thick colour. The light ran along skyscrapers; leapt between them as it dashed to begin its daily journey.

“Let’s get started,” she patted the top of the smoothed granite wall and backed away.

“They’re healing up pretty good,” Gladio noted, gesturing briefly to her hands.

Rena stretched them out, before forming fists and releasing again. There were no cracks in the formerly angry red skin. Her knuckles were rough, thickened by years of scarring whenever she moved her hands.

“Yeah, well.”

“You get something for ‘em?”

She put her rucksack down on a side bench and untied the leather keeping it closed. Reaching in, she felt through the varying textures to find her prize. Fingertips met firmer leather, the tangled roots of headphones, the cold stone of keys and finally, the soft buried flower of a scrunchie. She dug out the plain black band and stretched it in her hand.

“Yeah, they picked it up at my medical-.”

“That was like a month ago,” he frowned, shrugging out of his hoodie and rolling it around his forearm.

She untied the flannel from her waist and stuffed it into the bag, before picking out a spruce green rag and tucking it into her back pocket. “Kept splitting them open again.”

“Figures,” he cocked his head.

Gladio combed the thick, dark sweep of his hair back and squinted at the rising sun. The dark grey of the Crownsguard cap was quickly tugged onto his head. He breathed a laugh at the contorting blond as Prompto tried to get the best angle he could, without hanging over the edge of the building.

The sound of a door quietly clicking shut gathered all their attentions.

Noctis all but hissed when Ignis dragged him from the soothing, dim light of the hall and out into the brighter world. Delicate, pale hands formed claws and poised defensively in front of his face as Ignis took the dregs of his fourth Ebony that morning. He readjusted his glasses and nodded to the trio.

“Morning all.”

“Morning, Iggy.”

“Morning.”

“Hey Iggster!” Prompto bounded over, fast and bright enough to make Noctis grumble in his throat. A thin brow quirked at the approaching blond. “You got any more of that-.”

“Can it, Blondie, you’ll have a coronary.”

“Please don’t give him any more.”

Ignis sluggishly blinked between the three of them. A thud behind him temporarily demanded his attention. Noctis had put his bag down, only for it to miss the bench entirely and wedge itself against the wall. Raven hair didn’t do much to cushion his head when he smacked it against the wall and let out an airy groan.

Gladio snorted before shaking his head and swallowing the laugh that threatened to follow. Both of them caught the end of Ignis’ eyeroll as he turned back to them and breathed composure from the misted air. Fine features directed towards a boyish grin and pupils set in narrow cobalt rings.

“I’m afraid not, Prompto,” he drawled slowly. Ignis continued quietly, a gloved hand crushing the can in his hand while the other readjusted his glasses and left them crooked. He spoke through gritted teeth. “This was the last one.”

At first, pale lips formed a pout, but sucked into a thin line when a jade eye twitched at him. He stammered around a few excuses before sidling past to help a limp Noctis. A displeased bleat of surprise left the prince before he perked up at his friend, allowing himself to be lured into eager conversation.

Ignis’ sharpened expression lost some of its edge as he straightened his glasses. He took a lungful of the fresh morning air, cool and soft with the waning summer.

“That bad?”

“You have no idea,” Ignis shook his head. “The entire apartment’s worse than a chocobo stable, despite it being cleaned on Tuesday. I’ve no idea how he does it. Sometimes I’m convinced there’s more than one of him… But yes, then he refused to be dragged from his pit and fell asleep in the car on the way here. I’m going to be scrubbing that oversweet latte from the backseat for weeks.”

Gladio smiled warmly, his fight against the expression only growing as the advisor’s rant continued. At last, Ignis finished with an exasperated sigh. He stayed trapped in a conditioned poise, but he was slouching against the mast of his being.

“Yeah, but look at that,” Gladio jerked his head left.

Jade eyes followed the single direction and were gilded by the honeyed sunrise. His face followed, light brushing over his cheeks and brow in gentle, sweeping strokes. A gloved hand rose to toy with the skull of his necklace, repeatedly turning it and pressing it against the freshly shaven skin of his throat, still cooled by his aftershave as the breeze passed him. The smooth complexion was set into a peach tones; hair shining like wheat lazily growing towards harvest; to being ready.

“Well, now _that_ is lovely.”

“Ain’t it just? Haven’t seen one like that in months.”

“Years… We’re always so busy,” Ignis frowned.

The quiet morning amongst clouds offered them a moment of perfect clarity. They had their own clouds. Depending on the time they could range from the faintest wisp, like fleece caught on wire or the marks of a feather in dust; to the heaviest clouds that pressed down as if another layer were being cast onto the world. There would always be a cloud in the sky for them; a tie to their duty and a reminder that nothing grows without rain. A balance must be struck between fire and water for growth. There is no rough without smooth.

This was a smoother moment. One in which the chains fell still, as light and silent as silk. Always present, but sometimes gentler.

Rena had observed their quiet moment, watching them simply _breathe_ for the first time. She’d never seen them look so light, free, and accepting of the hand life had dealt. Her gaze slipped past Ignis to watch the younger two.

Perked up by the presence of sunshine incarnate, Noctis had brightened. Inky black hair was still sticking up in all directions around a head already heavy with the weight it would bear. Blue eyes were bright, on both of them. They reflected and only acted to deepen the hue of the other, to make them burst like forget-me-nots and cornflowers. The pair turned, walking towards the quieter trio.

She turned towards the steady presence at her left. Breaths fell in calm tides, as the stubble-darkened jaw was caressed by the dawn. The bob of his Adam’s apple momentarily revealed the sun before shielding her again. Green eyes followed strong lines laced with softer subtleties; a quiet mouth capable of thunder, thick lashes, expressive eyebrows and finally interrupting the chiselled lines; a cap.

A dart of yellow caught her eye. Prompto flicked mischievous eyes to the hat before locking on her. Both nodded once.

Her hand shot up, batting the cap two feet clear of his head. Prompto bolted over, leapt up using a hand on the Shield’s shoulder as leverage and plucked the cap from the air. He raced away. Gladio growled in his throat. At the end of the low rumble, he formed words that were considerably toned down from his initial thoughts.

“Damn it.”

“Sorry to ruin the moment, but we’ve got to get started at some point today.”

“I agree completely, and loathe that fact,” Ignis nodded, gliding past them to join the younger two.

Rena spun on the spot and watched as Prompto momentarily tensed. A gentle wave from a gloved hand smoothed his sparking nerves as he grinned. At the end of that same wave, a dark burst of crystals put a dagger in Ignis’ hand. Noct did the same with the engine blade, casting it into his grip with little more than a twitched finger.

“Warm me up?”

“Put your hoodie back on, city boy,” she quipped. Arms folded, she made for the small weapons rack.

A sharp whistle made her turn and walk backwards. It was followed by the familiar _crack-fizzle_ of a weapon summoning. He jogged towards her, catching up within a few strides.

“Here,” he mumbled, holding out the hilt of a sword. Amber eyes met hers with a mischievous smirk. “Noct wanted you to learn too.”

“That why we’re on a roof? So when Prom summons and gets enough of a fright to pull the trigger, chances of him shooting a window out are lower?”

“Nah. Ricochet.”

“Ahh,” she said, eyebrows rising. “That makes sense.”

“Course it does, it was Iggy’s idea,” the warm voice said through a smile. “Now c’mon. Let’s go.”

A sigh passed her throat, only showing itself as a faint growl.

“Alright, but I want to know why,” she took the hilt and pointed the plain steel pommel towards him briefly.

He summoned his own sword and stood ready, shifting his weight against his counterpart. His head weaved from side to side, working out the coy reasoning to tease a curious mind with. In stance and swaying calmly from side to side, dark eyes awaited their answer, one under a raised brow.

“Seems to be-,”

He swung quickly at her side. The blade was met and held clear until he yielded.

“Marshal thinks you’d make-,”

The broadsword burned in the sunrise, chasing down for her shoulder. Gladio waited for the clear note of steel to prompt him to speak again.

“A valuable addition-,”

Metal sung as the edge of her blade dragged against his own. The tip lightly tapped the top of his shoulder. He smirked and brought the broadsword up, pushing the opposing sword and her away and down from his chest.

“To the royal guard.”

“What?” Rena’s brows furrowed. She slipped to the side and met the swing he used to turn, always led by the sword. “Why the fuck would he think that?”

“You’ve impressed in combat situations, you _occasionally_ follow orders-,”

Swords met in a sharp note. “Very funny.”

“You know the outer regions. If he ever needs to-,”

Gladio dodged his head to the side as his own blade was pressed back towards him. Their sparring took pace, speeding up as they warmed with the sun. He frowned at an impassive, but focused, expression.

“Dick move. If he needs to leave the city, you know how the world works out there. You’ve already tried to kill him once, so in some weird logic Cor thinks you won’t try it again.”

“He’s half right,” she cocked her head, stepping aside to avoid the crashing broadsword again.

“Backwards, if you ask me.”

Rena took a mocking step away, arms held open in jest. He snorted briefly before shaking the laugh from his head and lunging forwards, sword sweeping up diagonally.

“But if he thinks you’d help, might be good-,”

Gladio spun away as her attacks began.

“To have you along. They want him to get some experience beyond the _wall_ -,”

She’d trapped his blade again, half-wrenching it from his grip to force him forwards so that she could step beyond. He swung back around, blade level with her shoulder as he held it poised in both hands.

“And they want to send _you_ with us. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“What kind of a fucking idea is that?” she shook her head, shoulders lowered as she relaxed her stance. Gladio waited before moving his blade away.

That was his first mistake.

“They-,”

Her sword cut towards his ribs, only just blocked in time as the flat of the blade approached.

“ _He.”_

“Is sending me-,”

Gladio caught the smaller sword as it swept towards his shoulder.

“To babysit-,”

He took a step backwards. Pushing on, her words were accented by strikes. Most were faster than his reactions, slowing the actions to gently tap his sides or arms, even neck, with the flat of the blade.

“A bunch… Of city boys… Who wouldn’t know… A shit… From a shovel… Because they think… It’ll be good _experience_?”

Gladio struck back, stopping her approach and deadening the momentum of the spar.

“It’s not like we don’t know what’s out there.”

“But you need to know what to do when you meet it, right? That’s the whole idea? Preparation?”

“Always is.”

“Fucking _hell_ ,” she groaned, initially at the topic, but then at the force of the broadsword pushing down until her hands were flush with her shoulders. Gladio smirked. She ducked and slipped past him.

He was about to approach and strike when the narrow, bright length of her sword glinted in the rising sun.

“Any of you get fucked up, it’s not my fault.”

“As if we would,” he jutted his chin up. Rena shook her head and met the strike he’d barely managed to hide.

“You _will._ That’s how shit works,” she assured. Her sword flashed above her head as she blocked one of his heavier blows. “Not a case of _if_ ; it’s _when._ ”

Gladio growled as he forced the blade down, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You better,” she nodded, still fighting him as he pushed.

The crossed blades passed between their faces, cutting through the cool air and lowering until eyes were unveiled by sinking steel held steady by mutual strength. Dark hair hung in curls, swept back from her face by the unseen hand of swift motion. A careful breeze nudged a few forwards. As they caught onto their companions, scent drifted. Honey met his senses for the second time that morning.

Burnt umber, smoothed by the glassy surface of his eyes, watched her intently and locked on her own.

Still unreadable, they were detailed enough to hold his attention. The mossy green was flat from a distance, but up close the depths were revealed. Lines of emerald and pine threw dimension. There were features in her gaze; landmarks. One iris held a bold dot of dark brown lingering under the pupil like the cross-section of a felled tree. Keen challenge widened her eyes and revealed the hidden colours of that same iris. A faint patch of lighter brown and another of sky blue lingered on the upper side of the pupil. They were more distant than the dot; a droplet of watercolour added to a still-wet green base. Gladio’s focus switched to the other eye. Purer green and all the deeper for it, he couldn’t choose. Both were framed by deceptively thick, dark lashes.

There were words there; meaning. He just couldn’t read them yet. It was a new language, a different script and a story untold.

Determination and curiosity burned in his own hues. She could see it. His mind was scrambling over thousands of pages, over strategies and techniques. Gladio was just beginning to piece together a plan.

_No one can stop you._

Her brows lowered gently, eyes granting him a dappled glimpse of enlightenment into her thoughts; her own curiosity, wary yet keen.

_No one can force her._

Gladio’s gaze dropped, flitting down and landing on parted lips. Closer than they’d ever been to his own, the breaths passing between them were already slowing, returning to a more restful rhythm. Blushed pink and bold against her skin, the soft fullness made blood pound in his ears and a smile twist the corner of his mouth. Such harsh words, sharp and crude, from so soft a place. His eyes trailed the soft cupids bow, swept along the smooth swell of the lower lip and mapped it. Her details were being revealed to him, one feature at a time.

The corner of her lips pulled into a smirk. She shoved, pushing him back. He stepped to adjust and shook his head, trying to cast the image of eyes that were simultaneously haunting and welcoming. The broadsword swung again but kept her at arms length. He’d afford her the privacy.

Glaivesteel met a counterpart as they trained amongst clouds. The clear, high notes drifted into the softening sky with all the rhythm of a music box.

“Lauritas?”

Swords paused, and all gazes moved to the source.

Arms crossed loosely across her front, the hand playing with her necklace briefly swept dove grey hair out of her eyes. After gently nodding to each of the boys, her focus fell back onto Rena. She steadied herself and greeted her superior.

“Officer Elshett. Good morning, ma’am.”

“Good morning… All of you,” she smiled warmly, passing her gaze over the rest as they gathered. They gave their quiet addresses. Once again, her eyes circled back to the messiest of the lot. “May I have a word?”

Rena nodded immediately. “Of course.”

“Follow me,” Monica turned on her heels and ducked into the training hall. She called over her shoulder before going too far. “You won’t be needing the sword, either.”

Green eyes turned back to the steadying brown. He shrugged and shook his head, brows edging towards a frown. Gladio jerked his head in Monica’s direction.

“Go find out.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, sweeping the fallen curls away from her eye before looking up at him.

Rena pinched the blade, holding the pommel out to Gladio. He cast his own back into the armiger before grasping the smaller sword. The hilt was warm in his hand. Rena stepped away, the breeze washing honey to him again. He let it wash over in a brief wave before shaking his head.

“Don’t get in trouble,” he called after her, eyebrows raised.

She walked backwards, dark brows pinched. “Can’t promise that. Got a nasty habit.”

A quick snort left him as she turned around and ducked into the training hall, footsteps dull on polished floors. Monica was waiting in the centre of the room. She signalled for Rena to follow and led her into the hallways. They left the upper level, working their way down to the quieter offices with windows lining the upper level of the foyer. Monica opened a black wood door and stepped inside.

Rena stood in the small room, filled mainly by a desk, its chair and two more on the opposing side. The older woman passed by her, an inch or so shorter, and leant backwards against her desk. Green eyes held the gaze of a familiar shade of chocolate brown. The younger was quickly assessed.

“Lauritas, I have a few questions for you and I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she stated calmly.

“Course not, ma’am.”

Monica inhaled deeply and folded her arms, hand retreating to play idly with her necklace. She kept a steady gaze on the unreadable expression.

“How are you finding it? Your training, your post, _life,”_ Monica smiled gently at the end of her words.

“It’s new, but I’m adjusting, ma’am,” she nodded, sweeping curls away again. Her hands met again, fingers twisted around each other. “Trying to take it in my stride, as much as I can.”

“Good… I must say, you’ve done nothing but impress us. Keep doing that and you can’t go far wrong.”

“I hope so, ma’am.”

Monica’s eyebrows rose as she gently shook her head with a smile. “You can drop the _ma’am_ part, it’s only the two of us in here, and I don’t mind. Call me Monica.”

A brief quirk at the corner of her mouth was followed by quiet words, clear and low.

“I’ve been told off for not respecting my superiors before, ma’am, I’d rather not make more trouble for myself.”

“Ah, see that’s the temperament the Scientia boy recommended when he vouched for you,” she pointed at Rena. “And one the marshal values. A sense of self-preservation can take you a long way.”

Monica stood and quickly circled to the back of her desk, flicking through the first few pages of a smooth, printed report.

“Yes… Ignis Stupeo Scientia, acting as advocate for one Renata Lauritas, recommends her to the Crownsguard on accounts of _versatility_ and _expertise pertaining to the exterior._ There,” she smiled. “You came highly recommended, and you’ve yet to disappoint.”

At a loss for words, Rena watched as Monica turned to the back of the file and worked her way back to the most recent entry. For the fourth time that week, Monica read the report that had almost prompted disciplinary action.

“Yes, I read this one too,” she nodded, bringing her gaze up to the young guard. “Impressive, by all means, but unexpected. I won’t lie though, I’m relieved the Glaive aren’t going to be snatching you up.”

“So am I, ma’am.”

“Captain Drautos reports _unpredictable combat techniques, determination, resilience_ and a hunting knife… Or at least that’s what he wrote.”

Monica flicked her eyes up to meet the younger woman’s focus. When she continued, it was in a lower tone.

“A few individuals, who would prefer to remain nameless for now, expressed concern following this event. Is there any need for it?”

The knife cut her cheek all over again, splitting the skin and grating against flesh with the subtle grains of the honed steel.

“No, ma’am.

“Are you sure?” Monica questioned, raising her eyebrows and watching carefully for any hint an expression written in invisible ink could give.

“I’m sure, ma’am,” she nodded, keeping her gaze steady.

“Alright, in that case, I have no hesitancies in informing you of your re-assignment-,”

Behind the still façade, the air in Rena’s lungs stilled, turning bitter and hard until she forced herself to breathe again.

“His Majesty, Captain Amicitia and the marshal have expressed the desire for the Prince to experience the outer regions. King Regis was the same age when he set out for Accordo, and was _woefully unprepared_ , or so he says, for what happened out there. He’d like Noctis to be…”

“Ready,” Rena said calmly. Monica gave a nod and continued with less seriousness harshening her soft expression.

“Ready. Should the day arise, of course. We have no plans to send him on such a journey. That idea was withdrawn before his birth, along with the walls, as I’m sure you know,” she added quietly.

A quick silence fell between them, laced with the guilt of one who called those walls home, and one who’d known life outside them. The shortages. The riots that burned in Old Lestallum. The grain that was sown, grown, reaped and sent straight to the crown city, flowing like a river across Lucis to feed the sea of people who simply knew it arrived and that there was plenty of it.

Monica inhaled sharply before continuing.

“As a result, we’d like him to get some experience. We’d like you to go with them. Short trips outside the city walls, probably no further than Duscae. Ignis has advanced field medicine training, and Gladiolus has completed a survival course with us.”

Green eyes watched carefully and told Monica nothing. The older woman had paused after her final sentence and smiled, almost bashfully, at the younger.

“Though I imagine you’d find that course a breeze,” she shrugged with narrow shoulders. “Ten days in Leide, a pack of base supplies and coordinates for pickup.”

“More than enough,” Rena remarked, beginning to shake her head. “Supplies and time.”

“I thought you’d say that. According to Ignis, you were on a hunting trip when the encounter occurred?” she prodded, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Tell me about it.”

Rena mouthed around her answer for a moment before speaking. “I started in March, took on odd bounties and favours in Cleigne until I’d run out. Moved to Duscae, did the same. Got to Leide and I was about to circle back when they got in the- ehm, when we all met.”

Monica laughed softly, before continuing her questions.

“Four months and hundreds of miles. What did you bring with you?”

“A bag, two knives, the clothes on my back.”

A frown fell across greying brows. “Report said you had a sword?”

“Got that on the way. Won a bet.”

“Ah,” Monica folded her arms again, toying with the silver charm of the necklace. A sudden thought pulled her brows together again. “Ignis also said you had some first aid skills. I believe his words were-,”

She pulled the file from the desk and flicked through the first few pages.

“ _rudimentary and alternative, yet effective_.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, you can expect details of the expedition within the next month. In the meantime, you’re to take an advanced field medicine course and exam which, judging by this report, you’ll sail through. That’s all, I think.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am,” she confirmed with a nod. Rena gestured over her shoulder and held the hazel gaze of her senior. “I’m expected on shift soon, may I leave, ma’am?”

“Of course,” Monica smiled, retreating to the far side of her desk to tuck the file in a pigeonhole.

Facing the door and taking quiet steps towards escape, her hand barely brushed the handle.

“Oh, one more question, if I may?”

“Of course,” she turned on her heels, fingertips lingering on the cool metal before she clasped her hands behind her.

“If you hadn’t joined the Guard, or if the last year hadn’t happened, what would you be doing with yourself? What were your plans? Aspirations?”

Brown eyes sparked with warmth and reminded her of another pair she’d known, since she could remember. Mollie was hundreds of miles from Insomnia, safely living in Old Lestallum and keeping house, while she waited for her first child. Whenever Rena’s monthly package arrived, her sister would take her share before delivering the rest to their parents.

“I wanted to study, ma’am. After I finished high school, I planned for university. Probably Lestallum.”

“Did you have an offer?” Monica asked, curiosity shining bright in dark eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

She asked it as if it were the easiest thing in the world. As if it weren’t a door Rena had slammed shut, only to find herself locked out. The sounds of home filled her head. The rough spark of a lighter. A hacking cough until the early hours of the morning. Children who muttered too darkly for their age, brooding over some unspoken divide. The river, always flowing like time, an entity that could not go back.

Rena took a deeper breath before answering. “Circumstances, ma’am.”

“Yours, or someone else’s?”

Rena wrestled with it, as she had for years. Between blame, and acceptance. Neither mattered, she had decided that long before; as long as mouths were fed, bills were paid, and life carried on as well as it could.

“Both.”

Monica hummed and nodded, arms crossing loosely as she took quiet steps towards the door.

“Well, just so you know, _if_ you still wanted to, you could study here. In Insomnia.”

Green eyes watched carefully as she listened in intent.

“Military personnel are exempt from tuition fees, so funding wouldn’t be a problem. The Crownsguard likes its members well-rounded. Balanced individuals make for balanced soldiers, which make for balanced teams. _And_ they fare better after finishing their time with us. All I’m saying is that it’s an option. Just say the word, let us know. We’ll work with you as best we can.”

She was silent.

“Ma’am-.”

“Think about it, okay? Just… think about it. You’ve got a long life ahead of you, and it’d be a shame to spend it doing what’s needed, as opposed to wanted, don’t you think?”

Dark brows pulled into a soft frown. Rena caught Monica’s gaze and chewed at her bottom lip with wide eyes. She may not have shown it, but indecision had always been her worst enemy. It didn’t matter so much in the everyday. Rena fought with dozens of thoughts, consequences, voices she heard each day and ones she’d left behind. It all came down to one thing; she wasn’t sure she could afford to waste that time when there were obligations that needed to be met immediately. Gods knew she wanted to try.

“I’ll think about it.”

A warm smile pushed dimples into Monica’s cheeks as she opened the door. “Good.”

* * *

Veiled behind the darkness of closed eyes and unable to face the blank sunshine outside, he’d elected to train in the hall. The lighting inside didn’t make his ears ring or blood pound at the back of his head. It was quieter. Softer. The faint smell of wood polish clung to the floors. It was strong enough to ground him. The bittersweet summer of lemon oil clung to the small cloth in his hand and seeped into his fingers.

Gladio hissed a breath when the citrus found a fresh papercut on his finger. He rubbed the pain away with his thumb and briefly examined the wound. No blood.

He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple. Warmth and no small amount of force didn’t so much provide relief but drove the pain deeper to a level that it didn’t feel so sharp; the arrowhead was no longer cutting the skin, it was embedded and all the duller for it. His migraine had been brewing for days, sitting in his lap like a cat before finally digging its claws in.

It twinged, pulled back to the surface, when the door handle clicked gently.

Dark lashes were willed to part. He continued with his task, quietly rubbing the oil into the leather of the hilt. He sniffed, inhaling a waft of citrus, carried on.

“Mornin’.”

Silence met him. Unsure if it was just the ringing in his ears, or if the reply had been so quiet it had slipped past him, he readied himself to turn around.

_Headphones._

The possibilities of the morning bloomed in his mind. Whatever he could overhear from the headphones turned up far too loud for her own good, but perfect to drown out the city, never offered any clue. He’d heard his glimpses and tried to use them as hints. Crashing drumbeats, the smooth note of a saxophone, guitar strings plucking like raindrops; they bore no correlation to her mood. She would always strike hard, move fast, and forgive few mistakes on either of their parts. But she’d laugh. She’d make _him_ laugh, sometimes just to distract him. She never gave him a clue.

“Good morning.”

The level drawl, enunciated and rhythmic, passed into his ears. A holdall was set down lightly, a few feet closer than usual.

He’d forgotten the new changes. She was to take a course, so here training times had been shifted. In her absence, Ignis was to spar with him. It had been too long since they’d been tested against each other. Some small part of Gladio hoped he’d be gentle on the first morning, especially in his uncharacteristically delicate condition.

“You doing okay?”

Cross-legged on the floor, with the flat of a wooden broadsword across his lap, he worked on finishing the last stubbornly cracked patch of leather, smoothing it with oil and the warmth of attention. Gladio turned his head.

Tall, slender and intently focused on the final page of the report he’d read on the way over, Ignis readjusted his glasses and puffed the relaxed wisps of hair out of his eyes. His lungs were stilled by focus as he ran his gaze over the fine print. When he finally snapped the report shut, Gladio winced lightly, brought back down by the deep, even tone.

“Never better. Yourself?”

“M’good,” he sighed.

Gladio stood, wobbled ever so slightly as already blurry vision blackened, and placed the sword back on the weapon stand. He summoned his own, the fizzle of crystals making his ears itch.

Ignis was already in the centre of the hall. Lance in hand, the jade eyes were withdrawn, still reading the file over in his head. Gladio approached. The weight of his broadsword over his shoulder tugged at the back of his head until it throbbed and dulled his hearing. He closed his eyes to focus on the pain, to use his mind to draw it out in smooth strokes over his back, for it to leave him. The power of the mind was not to be underestimated; pain was perceptive. If he focused, it didn’t hurt or even cause discomfort. It was simply there.

He’d used that approach countless times. Willing away pain was automatic; it only existed if he allowed it. It was as practiced as every strike, every sequence and every principle of his being. Predictable and well-played, they were far removed from the body itself; they were artificial. Unnatural. Even his meditation, which often came when he had the sword in his hand, or ran until his lungs burst, was stiffly regimented. He paced the straight and narrow.

_Curls. Unruly, messy, wild curls. Natural. Free. Changing. A little crazy._

_Hey. No distractions._

Gladio clenched his jaw hard enough for the migraine to fade, then swell back to push against his temples. The pain was cut open and enraged by the lance he nearly failed to block. The swift blade came for him again. He shoved against it, catching it as Ignis began his refined onslaught. Each strike echoed around the room and rattled in his head. He was fighting Ignis, pain and his own mind, every step of the way.

_Stay focused._

The voice wasn’t his own. It was smooth and low, edged with the hoarseness it took when quiet.

_Stay focused, alright?_

_Okay._


	8. Repression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a new distraction in mind, Gladio tries to keep himself on the straight and narrow whilst Rena walks the fine lines of socialising in Insomnian society, and those are treacherous waters hiding both friend and foe...

“Oh, come on! You can go harder, we both know _it-!_ ”

The warm crackle of his voice was dashed quiet, fire hit with a poker, when her blade forced his inches from his face. She stopped pressing forward, simply holding him there, with a sharp keenness in her expression. Gladio lowered his eyebrows and dared to let a smile tease the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t tempt me,” she quipped. One thick, dark brow shot back up, quirking his scar with it.

Rena used his momentary distraction, though admittedly he was having a lot of those, to run her sword along his, making the steel sing as she stepped aside, hooking her foot around his ankle to bring him down. He landed with a thud and rolled onto his back. Quiet footsteps circled him as he sighed out his words.

“So, that’s how it’s gonna be?”

“More or less.”

“Sword,” he said, holding a tanned hand out. The footsteps faded as she passed his legs. Dark lashes parted. Gladio squinted briefly at the pale morning sky. He requested again, firm and slow, but lilted by a rising smile. “ _Sword._ ”

The blade flashed by his head, dark steel biting into the shallow dirt of the training paddock, a few inches from his shoulder.

“If you could warp to that, I’d be impressed.”

She snorted a laugh and released the hilt, letting the sword sway gently. “Yeah, me too. Can’t even summon the fuckin’ thing.”

“You nearly had it,” he croaked, tensing himself to sit up. Gladio bent his knees and rested his forearms on them, his opponent nowhere to be seen. A faint stirring in his gut told him.

“Nearly,” she admitted. The cool steel rested gently on his shoulder. He glanced aside to the blade as it passed over his shoulder, light enough to keep the edges clear of his skin. “But not quite.”

With half of the sword in front of him, he chanced a glance over his shoulder. “You’ll get it. Probably at the worst damn time, too. Happened to me.”

The blade lifted from him as she padded forwards and passed him. Head bowed with another brief snort. His eyes locked on the swaying rag in her back pocket. Navy today. The colour of the rag gave as much insight as the music blared from her headphones; precisely none. It disappeared as she turned around, his focus shifting up before he could give her good reason to use that sword.

“There’s a story there,” she mused, her voice turning the words quiet and clear. He glanced up through thick lashes and met a raised eyebrow. He gently weaved his head from side to side before opening his mouth to answer.

“Let me guess. You were jacking off and _fshh,_ out comes the butterknife.”

“ _Agh,_ no. Gods no,” he cringed, bent knees pulling together at the ghost of a pained ache in his gut. His frown eased at the beat of laughter dancing in her throat. “You’re not far off with the butterknife thing, though.”

“Can’t wait for this,” Rena said quietly, mostly to herself. It met Gladio’s ears as a purr.

“School run. I was making sandwiches for Iris and me, kept running the training sessions over in my head. Next thing you know, chopping board’s kinda… Chopped.”

He glanced up, lips pressed together to hide a more bashful smile, and watched as the snort hit the roof of her mouth. She shook her head and suppressed a laugh while he willed her to let it, to let it happen and make her smile.

“Only you,” she remarked, turning the sword in her hand. “Anybody else, and it would’ve been fine. They’d have just cut the sandwich or maybe dented the board. But no. You took the fucker out.”

“Explaining that one was fun.”

“I bet,” Rena raised her eyebrows. They sank back down again in a frown. “You gonna stand up and finish this, or are you done?”

“In a minute,” he narrowed his eyes, watching as a single brow rose fractionally. “You must’ve done some stupid crap. What’s your worst?”

“Oh fuck, now you’re asking,” Rena cocked her head. She bit the inside of her lip. Amber eyes caught on the trapped flesh, lingering as she released it to its fullness again. “Uhm, reversed into a catoblepas once, but you know about that. Threw the knife and it hit a hornet’s nest. Bent a spoon until it was just a fuckin’ mess. Left it out in the cold, forgot I’d mangled it, lit a fire, damn thing exploded in the middle of the night. Got some fish drunk once, too.”

Gladio watched, eyes wide as she reeled off the list. The deadpan expression only made him laugh. The trail of moments plucked from her life, no doubt brighter moments, were ridiculous enough to defy her more serious nature. They were candid admissions given freely and enough to put the hint of an embarrassed frown onto her features.

“Yep. There’s the stupid crap.”

“Everybody does it, now get up,” she tapped his boot with the end of her sword. “We’ve got another five, then I need to go.”

He flopped onto his back with a thud, letting the air force from his lungs. The quiet, huffed sigh told him all he needed to know. Crossing his legs for effect and settling back, hands behind his head, Gladio watched the clouds sail over the city. A chain of pure white puffs was stamped into the blue, as if a giant had marched across the sky and left dust in their wake. Or maybe they were the running footprints of time, passing over only to dissipate in the distance.

_Parting is such sweet sorrow._

_Cut it out._

He tensed and pulled forwards with enough momentum to stand. Green eyes pinned him where he stood. Still firmly in position, Rena held her ground and only moved her eyes to lock on him when he appeared and loomed over her. Large umber eyes studied her own with curiosity. A dark brow, thinner than his, gathered with the other to form a small frown.

“Hi,” she nodded.

He swallowed and replied. “Hi.”

“Hate to ask you this when we’re standing this close, but you gonna get that sword out or what?”

Gladio snorted and took a few steps back. The handle of the broadsword was swiftly brought into his hand by a dark burst. The fizzing sensation was one that took hundreds of repetitions to become accustomed to. Akin to pins and needles, it was at its peak just before the weapon become solid and buzzed away harmlessly afterwards. That feeling alone was enough to make focusing difficult.

Swinging the broadsword before balancing as an extension of his arm, he fought the rising warmth in his cheeks and hoped his tan would hide it. He cut to his right and met another blade.

Wide-eyed and stopped dead, he paused while she spoke.

“If you’re done showing off, do you want to…?”

His jaw clenched as he raged to keep his face as still and unreadable as her own. Frantic amber hues searched her for a clue, a tip, _anything_.

“Do I wanna what?”

“Maybe fight like you mean it?”

She raised her brows and shoved against his sword. Gladio shook his head with a smile and sliced towards her. Rena met his strikes, repeatedly blocking the blade above her head as he tried to force it down. After one heavy downstroke, he swung diagonally upwards. She dodged backwards. The dark threat of the broadsword carried its own momentum in the latter half of the swing. He always had to tame it back.

She caught him in the minute lull between gathering the remnants of his last strike and preparing the next. His blade was held to his right by both hands, fighting as her own blocked him. She’d spun, and now had her back to him, focus entirely on the jarring force of the broadsword. The scent of her hair was thrown by the motion, cast over him like a net.

_No distractions._

He swivelled away, pushing against her blade. The edge of one grated against each other until her sword was hovering inches from his neck, and his was paused mid-swing, level with her hip. He turned the blade and tapped her with the flat of it.

“Footwork.”

“It’s always the fucking footwork,” she sighed. He tapped again, enough to prompt her to fix the straying limb.

He shrugged and tilted his head, mellow eyes catching her gaze. “It’s just like dancing.”

“I’m a shit dancer.”

Heavy brows drew into a frown. Gladio scoffed a laugh and cast his mind back to the perfume of whiskey in flashing lights.

“Ah, I get it. So when you were dancing at the bar a couple weeks back-.”

“I was drunk as hell,” she admitted with a nod. “And that was months, now.”

She lowered her sword and held the blade, pommel out, towards Gladio. He shook his head and accepted it, casting it back into the armiger alongside his own.

“Time flies.”

“It does,” she agreed.

Rena walked past him, making a beeline for her rucksack. The scent of honey washed over him again. He bit his cheek to sharpen himself out of it. Once the sound of quiet footsteps stopped, Gladio sighed deeply at the skyline as the pale sky washed over it, clouds swimming languidly through the blue, casting their shadows over skyscrapers and suburbs alike. A soothing chill came when a cloud swallowed the sun. Tanned skin, beaded with sweat and taut over a warm body, felt the smooth hand of relief from the sun’s stronger rays.

“That was a big sigh, you alright?”

“Hm?”

Gladio glanced over his shoulder, head and torso following his gaze until he stood side-on. She was crouched by her bag. Busy packing the pale linen of her hand wraps into her rucksack, the phone was plucked out when a pale hand retreated from the leather. Headphones were unwound, set up and tucked casually into her tank top.

Under the muting brushstroke of a cloud, pearlescent skin gleamed with the easy sweat of a morning’s sparring. She unbound her hair, letting it fall messy and wild. A long hand swept it back, half-lost amongst the dark curls and taming them with a practiced touch. She was contrasting.

Then time lured the cloud away, and let the sun see her. What struck him was how she changed.

Wild hair as dark as damp earth shone with shifting copper, bronze, gold and saffron threads. Strays illuminated in the sun, set into a soft glow. Starker tones remained as a few tendrils clung to her neck. The faint pink of the spar bloomed in her cheeks, one interrupted by the strong line of the fresh scar. The hand swept further back, squeezing at her nape and working out a knot. Then it all stopped.

Dark eyes had caught him. She’d seen him with mellow eyes and the softest upwards turn to his mouth. Rena lifted her head to match the gaze that had flicked up and witnessed him. He was still lost in the green, as present in that forest as he was on this rooftop.

For the first time, she couldn’t read his face.

The lightest rise of her eyebrows was enough to prompt him.

“Yep,” he nodded. Gladio began to walk towards her, aiming for his own holdall, which lay a few feet beyond her own.  As he passed, he confirmed it, as much to himself as her. “I’m good.”

“Good,” she returned.

Rena tilted her head until a series of clunks relieved the tugging in her neck.

He huffed a laugh as he shouldered his bag.

_That’s my girl._

He stopped dead. Everything; lungs, limbs, eyes, _everything_ stopped. It was nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears, like cathartic drums, dragging him through time as he remained fixed in space. At the sound of chains rattling in the distance, he shook the momentary haze from his head.

_No. Not yours._

Filling his lungs, he forced himself to move, stood up straight and walked in a tight circle. Rena slung her rucksack over her shoulder and tied the flannel shirt around her waist, already walking from the paddock, back into the training hall. Gladio followed ten feet behind, careful of his distance, as if she could hear his thoughts if he came too close.

_Just ask._

_Not today._

She opened the door of the hall, passed through and held it open behind her. There was still the gap. He covered it in three strides. The paler hand scooted from the door before he took it, but he’d still caught up to her. When she turned back and stepped out into the hallway, curls flying, the sly hand of motion brought her scent to him again. It was a breeze over a flower meadow and bringing him the medley, the divine combination of what could grow from little more than earth, water and a few days in the sun, gathered into perfume. It was summer without the sneezes.

_Why not?_

_Because._

They walked side by side. When they turned a corner, the flannel draped over her hips swathed out and brushed his hand. He formed a loose fist before tucking his hands into his pockets. The quick glance given by dark eyes was met by raised eyebrows and the upward jut of his chin.

_Because…?_

_Because look at her._

Keeping to a powerful stride, comfortable in the quiet of nothing but boots on marble floors, she had no need for conversation. Her own hands were gathered in front of her. They were habitually put through a cycle; wrung, joints cracked, knuckles strumming across each other. Green eyes were kept in calm focus. He fought a smile at the idea of her ears pulling towards the doors opening behind them, at the tiny details that tied her to her elements. Rena had pace, purpose, knew what she was doing and was content to do it alone.

She caught him looking.

Before Gladio could turn away and give himself up for discovery through avoidance alone, he was met by the quiet consideration she reserved for calmer moments. The slight pinching of brows was nothing short of endearing. She might not have seemed to care, but at least she thought. It was more than the assumptions others usually took. Every day was the same; he would show up, fulfil his duty, then go home and sleep.

But she gave him discussion, even if it was about nothing. She took the time to ask him and would express whether or not she believed him. It didn’t matter which, she always managed to coax a laugh from him. Everything from a quiet snort that she’d meant to cause, to all-out guffaws that made his sides ache.

She always tried, and whenever she succeeded his grin stayed broad and bright for just a little longer at the sight of her success. It was small and slight, but she smiled more, spoke with hardly any venom and yet he could tell that there was something missing.

Gladio had always been curious, though it was a trait he rarely indulged outside his books. The excitement and possibility of exploring something, _someone,_ who could respond and play the game with dynamism and humour, made his stomach flip. He loved stories, and he knew she had them hidden somewhere. They were beneath the more humorous tales, made rough by the fact she leant them out instead of her entire library. He wondered if there was aching sincerity, if there were times of small magic and simple moments that had changed everything. He wondered what she thought and felt, though she pretended to do neither.

“You alright?”

Gladio found himself smiling, a bright thing hitched up at one corner of his mouth before the other.

“Yeah…” he trailed, before the fleeting, fun notion of handing her the dice and watching how she rolled made him raise a curious eyebrow at her. He coughed in his throat and locked eyes with her as she gave him her own questioning hint of a smile. “You?”

She thought for a moment, and Gladio felt as though he’d peeked through a fence to see a garden she tended alone. She may have been miles into the wheat fields, surrounded by function and the one goal of feeding people, but she was trying to grow flowers in the patch of soul that only she knew.

Eyes on middle distance, she gave her answer. “Yeah.” Rena nodded and met his eyes again. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Curiosity fed, he only found himself with more of an appetite.

* * *

Face pinched, and fighting the burn of a sneeze, Gladio stood outside a wooden door with remnants of white paint, sanded down to nothing but dusty stains in the pale wood. He knocked twice, then blew the fine dust from his knuckles.

He took a step back at the low barks from beyond the threshold. They were quickly hushed, and the door opened.

“Hey,” she breathed, holding Ochre back with an outstretched leg.

He fought the smile as it loomed, threatening to pull his cheeks. Mellow eyes locked on hers, his rough voice came quietly. “Hey.”

“Come on in, just uh, yeah.”

She turned back, waving the dog away as he bounced between his front paws. Rena held the door open and gestured towards the room. Head bowed, Gladio stepped into the tiny apartment.

The single-paned glass of the window was still bare, fogging gently as the dog planted his paws on the sill and surveyed the street. The brick walls seemed a deeper red, basking in an autumn sunset. Rena waved her hand again, this time summoning a darker dog from the battered leather of the sofa it had disappeared into. Floorboards clear of the debris of a building threatening to collapse around it, Gladio remembered his manners and began to toe at one of his shoes.

“Don’t worry about it,” she reassured, shaking her head as she played idly with Seyna’s ear.  

After the wash of a honeyed scent that was fast becoming familiar, he chanced a glance; clean, comfortable and looking perfectly at home in the apartment she was slowly making her own. The ceiling was still cracked and walls still bare, but it was being brought back to life. As she took in the room and watched the dogs, she breathed a sigh and folded her arms loosely. She seemed… _closer_ than usual. He stood up straight but couldn’t quite piece it together yet. Something was off.

When she shifted on her feet, the quiet clack gave it away. Standing alongside her, his focus darted down to catch on a pair of black velvet heels, steady but poised. Rena caught him looking and spoke quietly, but still enough to startle him out of his observations.

“Yeah, I know. As if I wasn’t tall enough already.”

“Nah. Still shorter than me,” he assured, nodding briefly at her as he wore a smile bordering on smug. “World’s still in order.”

The head of curls shook with a gentle smile, but enough for one to land stray of the others. He fought a grin as she puffed it out of her eye quickly, making it sail and land on the top of her head, still apart from the rest. Gladio’s fingertips itched. Just a quick flick, or a small push, and it would be amongst the others again. He threw his hands into the pockets before he could give her an excuse to break them and glanced around the room, watching as the dogs gathered at the window.

“Anyway, get a seat while you can. They go fast here.”

Gladio breathed a laugh through his nose and ambled to take a seat. The moment he sat down, Ochre planted himself between Gladio’s feet, panting quietly as he considered the new male presence that was most definitely not the bubbling blond that bounced in at midday, almost shaking with excitement. The one that tasted like popcorn.

“Can I help you?”

“Don’t mind him, that’s just his _who the fuck are you_ face.”

Already on an exhale, Gladio broke into a wheeze and let his head fall forwards with the rest of the laugh. Grinning at the floor, his attention was brought back up when he heard something small but sweet. The warm beat of laughter playing like the first soft note, and the pleased hum she gave with a suppressed smile. He didn’t know that he could feel a spark rise in his eyes, but there it was. As bright and soft as its focus.

The dog mumbled an interruption and stood to nose at his hands. Gladio opened his mouth to speak.

“Might take me a minute to find it,” she said, leant against the wall with her head tilted in question. “Drink, or anything?”

“Nah, I’m okay,” he affirmed, just as the dog’s muzzle pushed between his hands. “Thanks.”

Rena nodded once and turned, sweeping her hair back from her face. Amber eyes followed as the curls ended, then flicked down to the heels that made him shake his head and fight a smile. His gaze climbed back upwards, over ankles, toned calves, the back of her knees, strong thighs, the shorts that ended just…

_Stop. Just stop._

He screwed his eyes shut before he could cross that threshold. The sound of heels on wooden floors stopped, and he deemed it safe to open his eyes again. He kept his focus on the dog. The mottled white, wheat and grey of his coat played thickly between Gladio’s fingers, but smoother tones drifted in his mind like silk. He tried to shake it, throwing a careless hand through his hair and trying to tug the image from his mind.

Pulling his own hair didn’t help. It only cast him deeper; to someone else pulling, to power in softer moments and a choice made, not an order given. A fight of a different kind. Rawer, quieter, subtler. Less human, and yet more. The type she held in her eyes. How would they look half-lidded? Pupils blown; he’d miss the green, but he’d probably have felt too good to care.

_Stop. Seriously._

Jaw clenched, he shook his head. When he opened his eyes again, he observed the room. The dogs were quiet, Ochre nosing at him while Gladio rubbed his ears. The sofa was scratched and worn through the years that had granted it patina. A mug perched on the windowsill. Long finished and found to be empty by the dogs, the pale eggshell of the ceramic loomed over a more interesting discovery.

Stacked neatly, but the top two nudged squint, was a small pile of books. He squinted at the spines. _A Comprehensive Introduction to High Lucian Etiquette_ , _An Encyclopaedic Guide to the Flora and Fauna of Leide_ , _Solheim: A Brief History_ , volumes six and seven, _Silence of Knowledge_ and _Our Darkest Days_. A smile played over his features as fleeting as a falling leaf.

“Finished the Henruit yet?”

In the kitchen, Rena paused her rummaging through the bag and frowned before realisation tapped her on the side of the head.

“No. Four chapters in, can’t get into it.”

“What?” he asked incredulously.

Gladio stood from the couch and, avoiding a bouncing Ochre at his side, made towards the miniature library she had arranged for herself. He plucked out the book in question and flicked to his favoured pages. Amber eyes skim-read the prose he knew so well he could recite it without prompting, and often did without warning. They were words that made his forearms fizz with raised hairs. He called out as prose raced under his gaze, every inked letter putting a smile on his face.

“You haven’t even got to chapter eight! That’s the good part!”

Her voice slipped from the kitchen. “Yeah, but the first few are fucking- wait… found it.”

Still enraptured by the book, he idly stepped towards the kitchen. Heels clicked and became louder. Movement in his peripheral.

“Yep, here it- _!_ ”

She choked back a small yelp, lurched past him and down. Snapping the book shut in one hand, his arm darted out and caught her by the waist. Both froze.

Eyes wide and locked on the mess of hair concealing her face, thrown into disarray by the fall, Gladio swallowed thickly and tried to stamp down the flipping of his own stomach. She was so warm. Soft, but hard underneath. His hand had moulded to her side through instinct. The calloused fingertips ghosted against skin bared by the motion of clumsiness.

Rena was completely still, holding her breath. Hidden by a curtain of hair, she glanced down at herself to see the stretch of a hard, tattooed arm holding her up. She swiftly remedied herself. Legs were forced not to shake, feet willed to stay firm and lungs prompted back into action again with all the subtlety of a whip. The arm pulled gently, following her as she stood up straight again.

As low growls left dark muzzles, realisation hit Gladio like a newspaper to the back of the head. He parted from the warm skin as if it had burned him.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She briefly tried to meet his eyes, but he kept them somewhere to her side, forcing himself to lock on fine details for the sake of avoiding hers. Her hand moved forward in his peripheral, holding out the neatly coiled stretch of cable. Gladio took his phone charger gingerly, careful to avoid touching her again, just in case she saw the hairs raise on his arms. He hoped she couldn’t hear the blood pounding in his ears.

Rena was fighting her own blood away from her cheeks, still feeling his arm on her as if she’d been branded.

“Thanks,” he breathed, tucking the charger into his pocket.

“You’re welcome. Just… don’t-.”

_Don’t touch her again. Don’t you dare touch her again._

“- leave things lying around, alright? Any fucker could’ve picked it up.”

He flashed a brief smile at crass words in a quiet tone, meeting her eyes out of a habit he was too messy-minded in that moment to fight. She held the earthen gaze, as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just done that. As his smile shrank back at an unreadable green, he gave a sincere nod.

“Thanks…” Gladio began to back away, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll uh, I’ll go.”

The smooth lull she gave made him want to run and stay put, all at the same time.

“Alright.”

“Yeah, I, uh...” he ran a hand through his hair before settling on massaging his nape. He squeezed too tight, as if he were dragging himself away by the scruff of his neck.

Mind racing, he was consumed by the memory of his wandering gazes that made him want to run until his lungs bled, and confused by the simple, dizzying innocence of catching her. She was steady, but he was just beginning his own fall. He could feel the ground slipping out from underneath him. He’d stood at the side of a waterfall to peer into the depths, only for the ground to crumble underneath him. What was waiting? Sharp rocks and a bloody landing, or deeper water he could explore?

But she’d tensed. She’d stopped breathing. He’d felt it. Made uncomfortable in her own home, only just as she was beginning to make it just that, and all because he’d forgotten a phone charger.

The door handle was icy when he met it, still backing out of the room as the dogs loomed at her side, alternating between nudging her hands and glaring at him. Rena was as steady as ever, and he envied her for it.

_You need to leave._

He swallowed again as he turned the handle.

“Thanks for the, uh-.”

“It’s fine,” she shook her head, shrugging lightly. “Don’t worry about it.”

_There. She wants you to leave. Gods know you’ve just made training awkward as hell._

“You, uh, you going to Iggy’s? The dinner thing on Thursday?” he asked, hardening his expression a little as the doe-eyes became dry and his throat drier at the open-mouthed pose he’d been holding.

_He said she was going._

_Please let her be going._

_Are you nuts?! You want to make her more uncomfortable or something? Haven’t you done enough?_

Her hands drew together, away from the dogs. Fingers knotted in front of her, she weaved her head to the side before nodding, watching as he hid behind brown eyes as heavy as wooden doors. It was a trick Gladio knew well, one he’d seen as she hid amongst greener foliage.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Cool.”

“Yep.”

Gladio slipped backwards through the door, offering raised brows with a muted smile.

“Bye.”

“Bye,” she nodded, face beginning to hint with a soft frown. “Don’t drive like an idiot.”

He laughed briefly, just a quiet sound, warbled by the butterflies it had to fight to emerge. Broad shoulders shrugged heavily as he cocked his head.

“I’m an idiot, so… Yeah.”

Rena’s frown deepened.

“Alright, see you on Thursday,” she waved briefly.

“Yeah, see you then.”

He shut the door quietly and felt his face heat. By the time he reached front door of the tenement, he looked as though he’d been slapped. Deep red cheeks and wide eyes met the cool autumn air. Gladio’s mind refused to be quiet, pulling this way and that, and loud enough to drown out his chains. They were still there. They had stakes in both sides of the argument and pulled taut, leaving him suspended in the middle.

_You know what dad would say._

_You want to leave her a widow?_

He slammed his car door shut loudly enough to give himself a fright. As he turned the ignition and gripped the wheel until he was white knuckled and, crucially, not shaking.

 _As if she’d want you in the first place._  

* * *

Paprika.

He could smell paprika.

The polished parquet of the apartment complex was smooth and even under his shoes. As he closed in on a familiar door, number forty-one, the air thickened with smoky perfume before a sweet and acrid marriage of garlic and tomatoes slipped out around the door. He pressed the bell and waited. Gladio glanced at his watch as he swayed back and forth on his feet. Early. A whole five minutes early.

The music playing inside quietened to reveal light footsteps that grew louder. The door swung open and there he was.

Lithe, graceful and in his more relaxed state after a long week. This one had been especially rough. So trying, in fact, that the new normal of a spar with Ignis in the morning had ended with Gladio getting a closer shave than his own razor.

Deep navy shirt, unbuttoned to reveal an elegant clavicle and sleeves rolled to the elbows of supple arms, he dried his hands on a tea towel before slinging it over his shoulder. He looked every part the everyday gourmet. Apron tied at his waist, cheeks flushed to a delicate rose by the heat of his craft and studio, Ignis wiped his glasses on a corner of the towel.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Drink?” he offered with a coy smile.

Following his gestures into the apartment, Gladio toed off his shoes and tucked them away into the shoe cabinet.

“Smells good.”

“It should be. Baked cod and co,” he nodded briefly, flicking away a wisp of wheaten hair. His usual style had been loosened by the steam and scents of the kitchen.

Gladio followed into an apartment he knew perfectly well. He was as at home here, amongst suave minimalism and the calm formality of neutral tones, as he was in his own place.

Ignis looked over his shoulder as they stepped into the spacious living room, filled mainly by a smooth black leather sofa, a glass coffee table and various nest tables stationed against the charcoal walls, each holding a single focal point. Fine pottery, some home to orchids so dark they seemed to drip night itself and others broken but repaired with gold or silver. Ignis was one for quiet poeticism, and everything most certainly had its place.

“You never answered me. What would you like to drink, Gladio? Or are you forcing me to be an awful host who’d let his guests go parched?”

Gladio snorted before shrugging lightly, barely lifting socked feet from the floor. A long day of training was weighing heavy in his bones, as if he’d been pumped full of lead.

“Just water, please.”

“Still or sparkling?”

A thick brow raised.

“Still it is, then.”

“Please,” he smiled.

Ignis returned the expression in a softness he only ever showed within these walls. He was allowed to think here, not forced to. He could feel and breathe. Gladio stretched out, fingertips barely brushing the high ceiling of the apartment. Dark lashes parted to give him a glimpse of the sofa before he could swing himself onto it.

Sprawled over the black leather in a mess of gangly limbs and too many layers to be wearing inside, even at this time of year, Prompto and Noctis were head to head, their legs hanging over each end of the sofa as they tapped viciously at their phones. It took a whole two minutes, but both pairs of blue eyes caught him eventually. Only one set widened.

“You two are early.”

“Specs picked us up on the way back from the Citadel.”

“Yep. Didn’t want us rocking up late, so he figured he’d take matters into his own hands.”

“Pfff. He did everything short of kidnapping us,” Noctis turned his head to face the blond.

“Yeah, but he kidnapped us like a gentleman.”

Gladio arched a brow. “What? Did he roll up in the car offering truffles and spa days? Bottle of champagne?”

“You’ve got a funny idea of being a _gentleman_.”

“Actually, I think he’s hit the nail on the head. Big guy knows what he’s doing,” Prompto clicked his fingers into a gun and winked up at the brunet.

Gladio shook his head and padded from the room, eyeing a dining chair. He remembered the subtle step up into the dining room, hopping up onto it just as he passed the kitchen door.

“More?”

“More.”

“Alright, you got it.”

The smooth tone immediately took any sound from his movements. Broad shoulders began to pull up as his head lowered, like a pup about to be picked up by its scruff.

_Stop acting like a little kid. You haven’t done anything wrong._

He abandoned his quest for a seat and closed in on the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe as the scents grew thicker with more time, and less distance. Gladio was almost afraid to lift his gaze from the kitchen floor.

When he finally did, there they were. Industrious and calm, they moved around each other as if they’d done this a hundred times before. There was a practiced grace that breathed efficiency. No pot left unstirred, no timer left over and no task untaken. This was Ignis’ studio. Every slice was a brushstroke; every plate a canvas.

And he’d welcomed her into it.

 _Involved_ her.

There she was, painting alongside him. A pale hand shook a pan that spat, the spice of the meat dyeing its own fat red, before retreating to touch her hair. There was no point. It was gathered into a loose bun, softer than her usual working style. A few wispy curls were stray, lingering to frame her face and dance down to her neck. She was glowing. Smooth skin cast in the warm tones of an autumnal sunset, her hair was shone like rich earth, veins of copper and gold.

She stopped before she got there and gathered her hands in front of herself, searching for the next task. Her eyes landed on the potted herbs thriving on the windowsill. She turned over her shoulder to look at Ignis. Rena’s eyes landed on Gladio first. She flashed him a brief smile, too quick to be forced, before locking on the chef.

His own smile lingered while he followed her gaze to the advisor.

“Marjoram too, Iggy?” Or just oregano, basil and rosemary?”

_…_

_Iggy?_

Ignis turned around from the sink and crossed the svelte kitchen in two strides. As he closed in on the collection of bubbling and spitting pots, a slender, ungloved hand gently met her back, fingertips first. It was simple, but effective. She didn’t flinch, or tense. Rena merely swayed to the side to grant him a fuller view of her industrious efforts.

“Marjoram too, I think,” he nodded. “And mind those. Don’t want them burning.”

“Well, you know your sausage. That’s for sure.”

A huffed laugh came through Ignis’s nose, gathering Gladio’s straying attention and blank observation of the pair. An elegant hand, the same he’d touched her with, held out a glass of water.

“Thanks,” Gladio forced himself to speak, accepting the drink.

The smooth glass, beaded with condensation, almost slipped from his fingers when Ignis returned to the fray to peer over Rena’s shoulder as she plucked herbs against her thumb. He pressed his fingertips against it, feeling the sharp razor of the glacial liquid and wishing his callouses didn’t dull it. The drink was crying in his hand. Brown eyes watched as two versions of the same shade worked with a focus and vivacity that only brightened as they shared space.

They were just different versions of each other. One lighter, more refined, grace personified; the other dark and richer for it. They were opposites, and yet similar enough to work together. The artist had invited her into his studio, and he’d found a new muse.

A victorious shout, partnered with an exasperated groan, called him from the kitchen; from soft jazz and quiet partnership. He left the close air, heavy with scents that called to an appetite that had nudged the bowl away and curled up. Hoisting a dining chair into his arm, Gladio padded to the living room silently.

Every sound he made was an offence now. An intrusion. His mere presence had already done enough to disturb them as they flitted about, dancing in elegant industry.

Gladio placed the chair down and met the bright screen of his phone. Seven thirty-six. Only two hours to go. He pushed past the lock screen and was met by another number. Hers. He’d forgotten to bring the book he’d mindlessly taken from her collection while he was too flustered to even say anything decent. He’d meant to apologise, for the way he acted, what he’d said and _not_ said. He’d meant to make it up to her.

He hadn’t done that. Intentions, no matter how good, were not reality.

Where was the burning? The infernal anger? The blackening in the back of his mind? This was just… nothing. It was quiet and obedient, undoubtedly reluctant, sitting like a bidden dog.

Gladio swiped away the open apps, eventually settling on a crossword. The loading screen had barely passed when a soft snort and quiet chuckle sailed on the scents of rich tomatoes and herbs. The silence was worse. He played but didn’t notice the game. Loud thoughts were whispered by sharp tongues in the back of his mind, his own common sense trying to hush them.

_Welcome to checkmate._

_You don’t have a choice. You’re gonna lose two friends, one you’ll work with for the rest of your life, over this?_

_Quit whining._

_Why are you getting worked up?_

_I’m not._

_Bullshit._

“Hey.”

Gladio roused himself from drowning thoughts that had felt so much like falling asleep. He clung to the voice like a rope as it pulled him out.

“You alright?”

A soft frown was waiting for him when he glanced up and saw her.

“’M fine,” he rasped, voice rough from silence. The words came out hotter than intended, glowing like coals in the quiet ambience of the living room.

_Drop the attitude, man._

The brief smile he supplied didn’t convince her, no matter how much it creased his eyes or balled his cheeks. He saw firmness set in her brows, but she still stayed unreadable.

_Eyes are the window to the soul._

_Yeah? Hers are fucking closed. Boarded up._

“It’s ready, c’mon,” she prompted, walking past him again.

Honey washed again, oozing smoothly under the sharper notes of garlic and paprika. The smokiness of that only led to… coffee. Leather. A sweet, heavy tide of vanilla. That scent wasn’t her own, and he cursed it.

_Quit it. Get over it._

_Nothing to get over._

Gladio stood and plucked his full glass from the coffee table. He carried the chair to the table and set it down, shortly followed by himself.

“I’m not talking to him. Rena, tell him I’m not talking to him.”

“I’m not getting involved.”

Prompto’s pale lips gaped at a firmly pressed set under sapphire eyes. “Oh, come on man! It wasn’t that bad! If you wanted to win, all you had to do was use that power up.”

“Rena. Royal command. Tell him,” Noctis folded his arms, eyes brightening as a plate was placed in front of him.

Ignis took a seat at the round mahogany table. This was where Ignis’ apartment became a home. The table was an antique, and certainly looked its age. Scratches, dents and vaguely sun-bleached or heat-warped patches gave it texture. The candid admissions of flaws, aging and experience only made it seem to breathe. It still worked. It was still a table. Polished and cared for, the faint scratches of fountain pens and cats claws wrote history into the heart of the place.

“Y- you’re unbelievable!” the blond laughed incredulously, hands gesturing wildly and almost knocking his plate from Rena’s hand. “Dude you’ve gotta be- ugh just- _Rena!”_

She stood quietly between their seats, eyes fixed on middle distance and shaking her head. Green eyes pinned sapphire first. Her tone was nonchalant and final.

“First off, I’m off duty. Shove your royal command and tell him yourself,”

A grin that was somewhere between delighted and smug made freckled cheeks ball. Prompto wiggled his eyebrows at Noct when Rena turned away from him. She put a plate down in front of the blond. A pink tongue ran swiftly between his lips, breathing in the smoky scent of the dish.

“And _you,”_

Cosmic blue widened at her as his mouth pressed so firm it became a small, upturned line.

“Stop provoking him. Just act your fuckin’ age.”

The corner of Noctis’ lips quirked as he fixed a pleased gaze at the silenced blond. Her ear pulled at the bold breath from his nose.

“Don’t think I won’t swear at you, Princess,” she challenged.

Rena took up her prowl around the table again. As she neared broader shoulders, they leant aside to let her place the plate in front of him. The fair hand withdrew and left him with dinner. Cod fillet blanketed by a thick, steaming tomato sauce that sang with herbs and the smoke of chorizo. Alongside were buttered potatoes, spinach and rocket. Warm scents wafted up to him, smoothing down bristling thoughts and hiding the faint note of honey she painted with her presence. It was a careless brushstroke. His stomach, however… He wasn’t sure if it felt more like it had shrunk to the size of a pebble, or if he’d had his fill of them. Truth and pride weigh heavy when swallowed.

Noctis narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I fucking would. You want to fucking try me? Little piece of shit,” she dared in jest.

Still wearing a smirk, she took her seat between a gaping Noctis and a blond trembling with suppressed laughter. Upon meeting Ignis’ tired gaze, she simply raised an eyebrow. He smiled wryly.

Noctis closed his mouth with a pop. “I really shouldn’t be surprised.”

“No, you really shouldn’t,” she shook her head, plucking her glass from the table. Noctis held his up in a lazy hand. They toasted casually before drinking. “Now eat your fuckin’ vegetables. I’ve heard stories.”

“Really? Wonder who that could’ve been…” his airy tone came through gritted teeth as he turned his head.

Mid-drink, Ignis pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows in denial. He set his glass down on the table with a light cough and began to gather a flake of fish on his fork.

“Haven’t the foggiest. Personally, I’d put my money on the _influence_ ,” he drawled, finishing with a coy mouthful of dinner. Jade eyes flitted up briefly to shine at the violet hues across from him.

After gaping for a moment, pale lips twitching around an answer, Prompto answered in a mockery of grandeur as cool as marble.

“Now, I don’t appreciate what it is that you’re insinuating. I would never-,”

“You would.”

“ _ever_ go around saying things like that. These lips stay sealed,” he pouted. When he opened his eyes, they briefly flicked to his plate. “Except at dinner.”

“In that case, we’re left with one option. Gladio?”

Burnt umber eyes lifted from his plate. He met Ignis first, then the blues before barely resting on hers. He shook his head gently and raised his brows.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Once again, the words with an aftertaste. Gladio’s lazy glance at Ignis was interrupted by a brief movement in his peripheral. The frown left as quickly as it had appeared, doing nothing to lessen her sharp focus. Amber eyes retreated to his plate.

The absent mess he’d made of a perfectly good meal lay spattered and bloody on the porcelain. The pale flesh of the fish, feathered by its own musculature, was broken and splayed limply. It looked as though he’d coughed up a bird. Just a small thing, one that could’ve perched in his hand. He knew it well. It sang ‘dawn’ for him every morning, as effortless and natural as the voice it carried. He’d felt it flutter, soar and this evening, roost and be shot. It had flown into a window and been dragged off by a cat. Now it sat in front of him, reincarnated as a joint creation; something they’d made together, alongside the pill he was to swallow.

Already sharp eyes narrowed at him, barely dulled by the glass shield they bore and used to march forwards.

“I don’t mean to pry and stop me if I am, but-.”

“Alright.”

The single beat, smooth and quiet, dashed the fire out from underneath him. He wanted to look up, to thank her, apologise, a hundred things but the cathartic mess of his plate demanded to be eaten. The bird wanted to disappear as if it had never existed.

“Still,” Ignis pressed, momentary concern written in the focus of sharp features. “ _Is_ everything alright?”

Perfectly aware that jade eyes could see straight through him if he stood at the wrong angle, and that a darker shade were becoming able to do the same at an alarming rate, Gladio made his decision. He forced the words out, putting ease into his every fibre with the breath they floated out on.

“Yeah,” he said, balancing between relaxed and chipper. “I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Ignis asked, eyes flicking down to the plate of demolished food. “I know you’re not all that keen on seafood but-.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged. He gently stabbed a flake of fish. “Just needs salt.”

_Wounds always need salt._

_Stop it._

_If it had been anyone else-._

_Stop. It._

Ignis pushed his chair back, but Rena left hers first. Quick and quiet, a pale hand placed both salt and pepper mills by him and circled back to her own seat. She ducked down between the pairs of sparking blue eyes in the midst of their fresh debate and downed the rest of her glass. Rena barely picked at the meal. Instead, she held a steady peace between Prompto and Noctis.

The group ate, and time passed. Laughs were shared, stories told, and endless trends regaled by the younger members, only to be brushed off as perplexing by the youngest. The eldest, however, ate without tasting and forced a heavy stomach to fill. He was warring again. On one side, it was sword in hand and demanding. The other was quiet but persistent. It was a stream that passed, smoothing down a rough stone until it reached a smooth conclusion.

He could keep his mouth shut and keep both close, or he could open it and hold a knife to ropes old and new.

Time crawled by. With the customary post-dinner coffee unusually bitter in his mouth, Gladio pulled his shoes from the cabinet and crouched to tie his laces. He finished one and reached to tie the next when something glinted. Fingers working automatically, amber eyes were free to flick up.

Heels. Black velvet heels.

Gladio gently closed the cabinet and stood to take a deep breath.

“You two ready?”

“Yeah, just- oof, stuffed,” Noctis admitted, patting a full stomach.

He stretched up, exposing a pale line of skin that quickly earned tickling fingers against his ribs. The growled yelp he let out made Prompto throw his head back with a giggle. A freckled shoulder was playfully pushed. Gladio passed behind him, quickly ducking back into the apartment and poking Noctis’ ribs on the way past.

“Hey!”

“You want a ride home or not?”

Quiet grumbles came from the hallway. Gladio nodded and drew another deep breath as he walked through the apartment, twisting to head towards the kitchen. The meal was heavy in his stomach and felt bruising as he closed in on the open archway that held Ignis’ studio beyond. Quiet chatter in smooth tones. He waited for a brief moment of silence to end and words to resume before knocking on the wall and peeking around it.

Ignis was fixed at the sink, elegant hands in rubber gloves and scrubbing down a plate. Rena was pacing quietly, drying another before tucking it into a cupboard. Both turned their heads and pinned him with green.

His own green-eyed monster had curled up in a corner, having been repeatedly pushed back and forced to sit down. The two that faced him wore softer expressions. Ignis had a small smile, sincere and satisfied, pulling at his mouth. Darker features were holding a soft frown and the hint of a smile smoothed across rosier lips. Redder than usual.

Gladio coughed in his throat before speaking quietly.

“You, uh, you need a lift home? There’s room in the car.”

“Uhm,” she began, accepting another plate from Ignis. Rena paced the length of the kitchen, stopping a few feet from him. “I think I’ll stick around. Somebody should help him, so, yeah. Thanks though.”

“Alright,” he said with a nod, barely above a whisper. “See you guys later.”

“Night Gladio, take care,” Ignis waved with his dish brush.

“Night Iggs,” he smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes, but they weren’t looking. His focus turned to Rena as she stretched up to put a glass back into a cupboard. She closed the door and dropped back to her usual height. Arms crossed loosely over her front, she puffed a curl out of her eyes and pulled the lush gaze to him.

“Night.”

“Night. Let us know when you get home, alright?”

Gladio hoped she couldn’t see the air leave his lungs through a tightened throat. He scratched at the back of his neck and felt the vertebrae shift as he nodded.

“Yeah, will do,” he put on a smile.

The fractional narrowing of her eyes made him fight to maintain his size. There was a sharp observation, an instinctive knowing, that made him feel small. As if she’d plucked what details she wanted from him, like fruit from a tree, and tasted to know what he held out of the reach of most, if not all.

Gladio backed away from the kitchen and took his hushed footsteps out of the apartment. When the door closed, Ignis pulled the gloves from his hands and quickly rinsed the powdery sensation of the lining away. As he dried them, Rena circled back from locking the door and sighed deeply. He gave her a quick smile and followed her into the living room.

Moving with all the lithe athleticism he used to spar, Ignis crossed the room, now free of the coffee table, and switched on the speaker. He met her in the centre of the room as the first smooth note played. She stood up straight from tightening her heel and met him in stance.

“Ready?” he asked, an elegant hand resting at her waist, while the other held hers level and high.

“Yeah, let’s get this down.”

“To a fine art. Alright then… one, two, three, one, two, three…”

As Ignis’ voice faded from counting her through the waltz, she gained balance and enough confidence in the steps to meet his face for a brief laugh.

“You’re doing well,” he smiled, letting her out for a twirl before she swept back in, power withheld in measured grace.

“You’re a good teacher,” she cocked her head, falling back in time with the sequence.

“I have an excellent student.”

Rena snorted a laugh. “I wouldn’t say that. How many times did I nearly break your toes today?”

“Half a dozen,” he stated calmly, suppressing the wider spread of a wry smile. “Which is half a dozen less than I’d expected.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Always. Now, mind your backstep,” he reminded, a thin brow raised above his glasses as she took the movement.

The hand at her waist pulled, gentle but firm. As much as she tried to shake it from her mind, it just wasn’t big enough. Warm enough. It may as well have been her own hand. The fingers were held in a formal collection. They didn’t part and mould to her. The two of them swept around the room in practiced rhythm.

As the music swelled, the dancers kept in time and followed the music as if they were pearls strung on it’s lofty thread.

Lustrous fabrics shone in the crystal light of the hall. Gladio filled his lungs with the scent of heavy aftershaves and oversweet perfumes and stood firm at the side of the room. His chest strained momentarily against the well-tailored fabric of his formal uniform, only to fall more comfortably when he let the breath back out.

As a dance finished and partners departed, a pair of young women passed in front of him, with flashing eyes and secretive laughs hushed into long white gloves. The corner of his mouth quirked when he spotted their escort; an older woman, equally as formal but far stiffer in her graces, who sharply glared at the girls before offering a respectful nod to Gladio. He nodded in return and uttered his respects in as smooth a tone as he could muster from a rough throat.

“Ma’am.”

She continued on her way, nose held high before she ducked to offer harsh words towards, what were presumably, her daughters. He cleared his throat quietly and faced the room again. Every few seconds, his eyes would flicker to Noctis. The prince, however nervous, looked the part in a fine raiment and with his father for company. A small flash of white, black and yellow distracted Gladio for the third time in the last two hours.

Prompto had arrived shaking like a leaf, thrown up shortly after the formal dinner and wheezed on a balcony for a good ten minutes after meeting King Regis. Gladio let his eyes close, turned to the blond at his side and opened them again, awaiting the next ailment.

Hands knotted in each other, after having been told to leave his hair be, he was restless. The tuxedo was decently fitted; it was one of Noct’s from two or three years before. Still, Prompto shuffled as if he were a canary tied to a cat. Gladio, feeling very much the part of the cat, was sure that if he’d possessed a tail, the end would be flicking to and fro. Other than Noctis, who was currently involved in a conversation-turned-negotiation with an Altissian representative, Gladio was the person Prompto feared least in the room.

“Breathe, Blondie,” he reminded. A rough gulp of air at his side made his brows a little heavier. “It’s only a couple hours. Get a drink.”

“But what if I say something? _Do_ something? I- I can’t! I’ll make a mess and oh my gods why am I doing this?”

Prompto trailed into a whine as Gladio straightened back up and surveyed the room again. Any sharp movements, or any too slow to be innocent, and he’d be on them like a hawk. Events such as these were second only to public affairs and treaties, in terms of risks and stakes. As the majority of the room fell back into a dance, it was easier to spot outliers. The names and faces of the briefing files he’d had for the last week were branded into his mind. Some were simply cautionary; others were to be apprehended on sight.

“Do yourself a favour; unwind. You’re screwed a little too tight,” he warned, eyes locking on a group erupting in laughter and those milling past them.

Prompto sighed heavily, voice warbling on the exhale.

“And stand up straight.”

The blond did as told, stiffening his posture until he matched the still grace of paused party members, brandies and babycham glasses hanging in delicate hands. Amber eyes fixed on the trio of women from earlier. Their features were fine, sharp even, and accentuated by flawless cosmetics. Sleek hair was jet black in the younger pair and dyed to remain that way in the older. It was twisted into high styles, kept close and smooth in their contortions.

“Dude, I don’t know if I can-.”

“If you’re gonna puke, balcony’s back there,” he said flatly, eyes landing on Noctis again.

“N-no, Gladio-.”

“Make sure you shut the door, too. Last thing we need’s Charmless over there hurling on one of the guests.”

A light, shaking gasp at his side only made him dread the following gag, retch and eventual splatter on the polished marble floors, likely with splashback onto his shoes.

“Blondie, I’m serious, get out there.”

A trembling tug at his sleeve made him turn to the blond. He was stiller than he’d been all night. Cosmic blue eyes wide and shining with the stars the chandeliers mimicked, pale lips had parted into a soft ‘o’.

In contrast, Gladio’s brows were pulled into a heavy frown, eyes narrowed, and jaw clenched. He followed Prompto’s fixed gaze to the towering doorway of the hall.

His jaw slackened enough to part plump lips, earthen eyes turned round and all his strength was stolen on one breath.

She was tall and steady. Pale skin was cast into warm cream by a stormy grey silk. It draped over her, hanging wistfully from broad shoulders, tucked true to her waist before following the spread of her hips again. Dark hair was free, merely swept over one shoulder.

In a lazily powerful movement, she turned over her shoulder before following the motion. With her back to them, exposed to the waist, a few defined curls strayed from the rest. They were like ink on a page. Scribbled, rushed in passion, words desperate to be written in the fevered haste of creation and almost illegible for it. They were annotations in a book; the lines of a love letter.

Rena turned around, facing the room again and briefly gathering her shoulders. Shadows pooled like smoke above her clavicle. A pale arm linked with a black sleeve. Ignis’ other hand gave her arm a light pat before being stationed at his side in graceful composure. She gave him a brief nod. In unison, they descended the steps into the fray of other guests, as balanced and calm as each other. Rena matched every fibre of his lithe refinement with a steady power. Less prone to pounce but foreboding enough even as she lounged and hid her claws.

Brown eyes watched them as they took up stance and flawlessly followed in step, as poised and practiced as any of the other pieces on that swirling chessboard. He saw her every movement. Every inch of restraint put through limbs capable of so much more. The soft features held in that hard expression were familiar though. This was as much a battlefield as the training arenas, she knew that. Consequences were everywhere.

As the dance came to an end, music already being sewn into the next piece, the pair drifted towards the pillar Gladio and Prompto were using to hold themselves up.

“Good evening,” Ignis drawled.

Jade eyes were sharp as they observed the other two. Prompto’s open mouth had been tugged up into a broad grin.

“Ju- _wow,”_ he breathed, trying to keep his hands still. He was steadied by her; the sparking electricity grounded by an earthier presence. Prompto gestured to her and earned a flat frown over an amused smile.

“Boo.”

A strangled yet delighted yelp left the young blond as he tugged on Gladio’s sleeve again. Soft eyes were frantic. Washed of the formalities of her first attempt at a royal event, she was barefaced and still striking in a room full of finely painted features that qualified as works of art. The dress shifted like quicksilver. Against pearlescent skin, dark hair and metallic grey, her brightest colours were intimacies. Lips reddened by a few hours of nervous biting and her eyes...

She may as well have held all of Eos in her eyes.

The deepest greens of Cleigne were still the strongest colour. Rena held his gaze, sharp and steady enough to try and read him before he could shut mahogany doors. She saw words, symbols, but all of them foreign.

“Alright?”

It took him a moment to answer.

“Yeah. You?”

“I’m alright,” she nodded, hair falling into her eyes only to be puffed away again. The simple reminder of humanity pushed a light smile onto his lips.

“And I’m going to ensure Noct doesn’t say anything he shouldn’t,” Ignis interjected. He flashed the trio a nod each. “Have a good evening. Enjoy yourselves.”

They returned their sentiments, some more hushed than others, as the advisor left the group and weaved his way towards Noctis.

“Prom, how you doing?”

“I’m- I’m- I’m pretty good,” he nodded, crossing his arms to still them. The desperate pinching of brows and pressed smile said otherwise.

“Alright, you’re going for some air before you throw up.”

“But I-!” Prompto stammered. He mouthed around a more energetic response before letting his shoulders fall with his words. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Let’s go,” she nodded.

The blond did an about turn and started towards the blue of the balcony doors. Rena took two steps, until she was level, shoulder to shoulder, with Gladio. The low, smooth voice was commanding, no matter how quietly she spoke.

“You sure you’re alright?”

Gladio swallowed, trying to keep his eyes on hers and fighting to take them away at the same time. His glance caught the curve of the muscle pulled taut by the turning of her head. He followed the line, lingering on her lips before getting himself lost in the forest again.

“Yeah,” he nodded, rough voice as deep and quiet as the sea. “I’m good, why?”

She frowned and let her eyes close as she breathed a sigh through her nose. “You’re a shit liar.”

Dread fizzed through his nerves like an effervescent wave; a warning hand brushing him down from head to toe. It settled as a weight in his gut when she walked away, following Prompto into the blue.

He was white-knuckled at the balcony’s edge, rocking back and forth on his feet as he drew measured breaths. The approaching click of heels made him tense, before letting out a shaky sigh. Rena cast her eyes to the city, glowing with its false stars. It was as if they’d been plucked from the night sky and held mockingly by humanity, to stare at the place they belonged but bound to the earth.

“Breathe. Just breathe.”

“I can’t. Why am I here?”

“Prom-.”

“I don’t belong here! They know it, _I_ know it, so why am I still here? Why did they even let me in?”

Rena stopped by the marble railing, crossing her arms loosely and leaning her hip against the smooth stone. Wide blue eyes, too frantic to hold her gaze before he flicked back the city.

“I’m not meant to-.”

“Who invited you?”

Prompto took a second before letting out a shaky sound, almost incoherently forming a question. “What?”

“ _Who_ invited you?”

There was a firmness to her tone, a steady force, that gave him something solid to cling to.

“N-Noct.”

“ _Why?”_

“What?” he asked, eyes turning to saucers. He shook his head, messing his hair into chaos with a hair that pulled with enough force to ground him inside his own mind. “I don’t know, he just-.”

“He wanted you here. With him. He _chose_ to ask you, and you _chose_ to be here,” she spoke simply, tying him back to reality with every word. “That’s all it is, Prom.”

“But I’m just-!” he quaked, voice taking on a rough, raw edge.

“Plebeian?”

“That, but not as fancy,” he nodded, tight fists landing on the balcony’s edge with a hollow thud. “I don’t belong here. They all know it, I know it, and I just… don’t know what to do.”

“Hey,” she leant to the side, catching his restless gaze and holding it still. “You think I belong here?”

Prompto chewed his lip, weaving his head from side to side. “Well, I mean, at least you’re _in_ the-.”

“No. It’s not that. Do you think _I_ belong here? I’m from the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. Point is, we’re both _here_. So, you’re just a plebe and I’m just a bumpkin. We’re human, Prompto. _People._ That puts us on the same level as anybody else in there, as much as those fuckers might hate it. We’re here because we were asked for and decided to go.”

Smoothed down by the force of strong words in a convicted tone, Prompto’s frown loosened a little as his lungs became easier to fill. He took deep breaths of night in the city, watching the lights of countless cars as they fed the heart of the city, before drawing away in the red lines of brake lights.

“Who invited you?”

She raised a brow and turned to face the city with him, fingertips tapping soundlessly on the marble.

“Ignis,” she revealed. “It was Noct’s idea though. Thought it would be good to have me around if you freaked out a little. Don’t know why. I’m shit at the whole brushing people down thing.”

“Huh,” he nodded, the sound leaving him small and high. Silence fell between them, filled by the higher string notes from inside and the low thrum of traffic. “You- you did okay… The whole getting me back on track gig.”

“It was that or hold you over the balcony until you fainted. Thought I’d try this one first,” she admitted, deadpan as Prompto’s head whipped to her with wide eyes. “But if this doesn’t work I could always do the second anyway.”

“No thanks! I’m good!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he laughed nervously, stepping away from the balcony.

Rena stood up straight and turned as he backed away, straightening his jacket while his strides gained more of their usual bounce and energy.

“I’m think I’ll go see Noct,” he nodded, a keen smile beginning to hint on his face. It was weakly suppressed, and only spread as she raised a brow.

“Good. Go give him a break, he looks bored as hell,” she smirked, eyes catching on the drooping Prince. Prompto followed her gaze before turning back to her, bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

“Thanks… _bumpkin._ ”

“Have fun, pleb. Give ‘em hell.”

The blond nodded once more and mussed his hair quickly before slipping back into the fray. As the door clicked closed and the glittering sounds of heels, glasses, musical laughs and polite discussions were dulled by the glass, Rena filled her lungs before forcing the breath back out. It was quieter here. A black velvet sky was draped heavily, shining with the oil slick of the Wall. Arms loose at her sides, the steady tap of her heels carried her to the edge of the balcony, and the faintest hint of a breeze rushing past her.

The sounds behind her swelled again, ended with the careful clicking of the door handle. Heavy footsteps came closer. Next it would be a rough voice, the scent of lemon oil and warm leather. A jest, if there was enough of him there to offer one. His behaviour had been puzzling, but true to her nature she’d waited to watch it develop, instead of immediately seeking advice. Ever independent, and stubbornly so, Rena had dashed every unrealistic conclusion.

There was no way. He had his pick; a city full of them. All finer, perfumed by trained grace and from generations of excellence. All neater, smoother and with fewer vices, if any.

There was no way. She didn’t want there to be one. Home was a bed she warmed herself. It was a pair of wet noses at her hands. It wasn’t anything else, and it never needed to be.

The steps were a different rhythm. _Dress shoes?_ The hairs on the back of her neck rose as a chill slipped down her spine like a knife, splitting her open for the warm blood of adrenaline to flow.

Black pepper.

Eyes fixed on the horizon marked only by the abrupt absence of lights, Rena held firm.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening, sir.”

“Thought they’d have taught you enough respect in the Guard to look people in the eye when you talk to them.”

She took one last lungful of air that was only laced with him, before turning on the spot and meeting strong features, freshly shaven but already shadowed. Leather, iron, charred rosemary all joined the biting scent of pepper. His eyes followed her in swathes. Every drape of the silk, every wild curl and every revelation of flesh, blood and bones her breaths gave away.

Her eyes never left his. They gave him no clues, and held his gaze with neither respect, nor fear. She was just looking at him. That was all.

“It suits you,” he mused, sage hues tracing the line of her scar.

“Wasn’t the first and it won’t be the last,” she admitted calmly. Certainty was a solid armour on the underbelly of her every word.

“And where is your knife now?” Drautos asked.

He stepped forwards and closed the gap. The cool, solid of the marble pressed against her lower back. Rena held his eyes. Challenge flashed through them like lightning on a storming sea.

“We always carry knives. All of us. Some more subtle than others.”

“Is that so? What other wisdoms do you have, little pearl?”

The thing about the sea is that it never stops. Somewhere it is always churning, pulled to and fro at the whim of the moon and swept rough or smoothed by the wind. The sea is unstoppable, untameable, and therein lies its flaw.

“Pity the restless. Tranquillity hard to come by, and harder to hold on to.”

It was brief, instantaneous even, but she saw it. Somewhere in that sea, a man was drowning. The grating instinct in her gut had always said there was a part of him hidden away, something more desperate. He’d been at sea for years, swimming to stay alive as the storm had ripped his vessel from his hands, and at the mercy of his own element he was failing.

From his eyes, the forest was still. Breezeless and dying where it stood. Forests always did. Their stubborn refusal to move always meant the death of them. Leaves would fall, rot and be taken up to become leaves again. If they dried, one spark could burn hundreds, _thousands_ , of years to ash and smoke. If flooded, the earth they clung to, partnered in mutual reliance, would slip out from underneath them and abandon them to the ravages of gravity. Forests were unchanging, but once changed, they were changed for good.

Drautos stepped closer again, pressing a hand against the smooth marble. He took in her scent, stirring it up as his free hand swept her hair away and left if over the opposite shoulder. With her scar bare in its entirety, he leant in until the warmth of younger flesh washed over him. It carried a medley, fresh and clean. Honey, pine she’d never scrub from her skin and petrichor. Rain was the scent of her skin.

His mouth hovered by her ear as he whispered, voice deep and heated, forged in his throat and tempered by a silver tongue.

“And are you tranquil?”

She turned her head, bringing her lips an inch away from the hinge of his strong jaw. Voice as smooth as ever, quietened enough for it’s hoarse edge, she spoke.

“As a river.”

“In that case,” he began. A leather-clad fingertip ghosted against her nape. As he continued, it drifted.

“Always moving,”

As the fingertip passed between her shoulder blades, she forced them to stay still, not to tense and pull in an attempt to work him out of her back.

“But only ever,”

His touch cut her open. Already burning nerves were set into inferno as Rena tried to sear him from her skin.

“In,”

Waist.

“One,”

Under the silk.

“Direction.”

_Towards the sea._

His hand splayed against her lower back. The leather and mail of his raiment met her skin as contradictions of each other. Warm hide; cold steel. Drautos may have been drowning, but he was standing right there and becoming drunk on her scent as his own took on a heated note. She was warm, smooth and clean, _so_ clean. There was barely a mark on her.

“Captain.”

In one satin note, one slip of silk across his cheek, satisfaction flooded in his blood and warmed it. Alongside the scent of her skin, it was heady and intoxicating. The word had been everything she was, and everything he craved. Soft, smooth, loud enough to be clear and hushed to be close. Her voice hadn’t shaken. It was as steady as the rest of her; as brazen and clear in a tone as warm as smoke.

“Good evening, Lauritas.”

The deep enunciation was instantaneously recognisable. It had questioned him in countless meetings, briefings. It had the second last word, _always._ It was wise and never forgot anything. It was one to be careful around.

Drautos cleared his throat and stepped away, careful to remove his hand before he did.

“Captain Amicitia.”

“Captain Drautos.”

Greying eyes briefly left the cutting blue to read her. She wasn’t even shaking. Unreadable, and displaying no hints of fear, or pride. She simply existed in their presence; the pivoting point that could sway to either one of them. Neither of them knew her thoughts. Rena liked to keep it that way.

“Scientia’s been telling us you’ve learned the Tenebraean waltz. Would you care to join me?” Clarus offered, fixing her with crystal eyes under a hard frown he softened with grace.

“Of course, captain.”

She carefully took the arm presented to her and turned over her shoulder to nod once at Drautos.

“Sir.”

They left him on the balcony, slipping back into the brighter lights and louder presence of the hall. Hot blood began to burn in him, filling him with dark smoke to replace already dark intentions.

Clarus led her into the hall and met her in stance just as the music began. The sweeping tempo of Tenebraean was faster than a normal waltz, but still at a comfortable enough pace to hold a conversation. They fell into step with the other dancers, swirling in waves as a ghostly hand conducted the room.

Shaking his head and stifling a yawn, Gladio surveyed the room again. His gaze took a smooth loop from Noct, along the near side of the hall, the doors, and along the far side back to Noctis. Ignis was by his side, carrying yet another conversation with the composed refinement he wore as easily as a watch. Over the years it had been harder and harder for him to shake that temperament in private. The loosest Gladio had seen him in a year had been a week before, at dinner. When everything made sense.

Gladio had resigned himself to it. They were a handsome couple; opposite and the same. Well-matched, similar interests and temperaments. Both took turns to be pedantic, humorous and cerebral. They could keep up with each other, and Six knew perhaps eyes as sharp as Ignis’ would be keen enough to read her and understand.

He wanted them happy, and Gladio was familiar with the concept of sacrifice.

On his second sweep of the room, he caught sight of the lustrous gold accents of his father’s raiment, and the earthy tone they danced with. A lead weight dropped in his gut.

_Oh shit._

As they spun, he could see his father’s mouth moving. He was too far away to read his lips; hearing was out of the question. They pivoted, the dance demanding they turn. It was Rena’s turn. Her lips didn’t move. Her eyes did. Dark and steady from across the room, she locked on him with magnetic force, before flicking back to the older Amicitia in front of her. Her mouth only just began to move when they turned again.

“Good evening.”

Clarus’ already serious expression was beginning to stiffen. The back of his head and Rena’s concealing features continued to form words when she was revealed to him again.

“Gladio.”

She permitted a wry smile when she drew a few warm beats of laughter from Clarus. He spoke through a smile before Gladio’s observations were able to make out the words.

_“Gladio.”_

“What?!” he demanded through gritted teeth. Every fraying nerve was sparking.

Then ice blue locked on him from under their frown and he swiftly remembered himself. Gladio physically straightened his posture and lowered his head.

“Marshal. I’m-.”

“You will be. I’m moving you back onto earlier PT sessions. Scientia too,” Cor revealed.

Lithe and athletic in his formal uniform, he was a medalled, commended member of both the Crownsguard and the high societal circles of Lucis. Even civilians knew of him. He sipped at the glass of water in his hand and surveyed the room quickly. When glacial hues landed back on Gladiolus, he was exactly where Cor had left him. A few seconds of staring was enough to coax eye contact from the young Shield.

“Cheer up. You’ll be training with Lauritas again. Good news is now she can put you back together; she passed her exam with flying colours.”

Gladio wasn’t sure if mornings had just gotten easier, or far harder. He’d be able to drag himself out of bed in full knowledge that crass words and quick remarks would rouse him further, propping him up and giving him something to laugh about whenever the day took a tedious or difficult turn. On the other hand, he’d only just started to get somewhere. To distance himself enough to free his thoughts a little.

“She never said, sir.”

“I should hope not,” Cor laughed richly. “She may be stubborn as hell, but there’s not a proud bone in her body.”

“No, sir,” Gladio agreed. He watched her and Clarus bow as the dance finished.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Drautos looks like he’s about to skin someone alive and I don’t recall red being the theme for tonight,” Cor leaned to the side, his frown deepening as he caught sight of the captain. “Have a good evening, lieutenant.”

“You too, sir,” he nodded, flashing a quick smile as the Marshal stalked off to placate the old bear.

He immediately searched the room again. Gladio had to make a conscious effort to actually comb through the crowd, instead of immediately homing in on a head of wild curls. He found her anyway. Across from a tawny coif. The sight was to become a familiar one. Best to swallow his pride and mimic her lack. Six knew she’d taught him enough. His combat had never been so instinctive. He was straying from the blueprints and sequences laid out by over a decade of studying his disciplines. It wasn’t freestyle, but it was personalised enough to give him more impact, speed, accuracy and, crucially, success.

“Here.”

Gladio inhaled sharply and jolted. She was watching him, holding out a glass, cheeks gently flushed. Once again, Rena read amber eyes quickly, before he could shut the doors.

“You look warm,” she said, voice smooth and only just loud enough to come through the sounds of the hall.

“I can’t. On duty,” he shook his head, straightening his posture and quickly sweeping the room, only to come back to dark eyes.

“It’s water.”

The gently raised brows and careful watch she held him under kept him still. Once he remembered the passing of time, and the amount he’d spent silent, he answered in a blurted hurry of hoarse words, fractionally faster than his usual speed and being held back by every ounce of control he had.

“Nah, you need it more than I do. All that dancing. All I’ve done is stand here.”

“Which is tiring and yeah, you need to do it, but you’ll stay awake better if you need a piss,” she nodded, holding the drink out by the base.

He breathed a laugh through his nose and scanned the room again. For a moment, the weight that had sat in his gut since the dinner was lifted. Its absence was lighter. It felt more like a sunrise; rising heavy and yet pulled by time itself. Sunrise had been their time. It would be their time again. Gladio had laughed his way through weeks of morning training, never getting through the first hour before she’d said something to loosen him. Now, he’d be training with two excellent friends that could challenge him, in more ways than one.

Rena gently swirled it, letting the percussion of ice play against smooth glass in a teasing melody. The single raised brow made him scoff softly and accept the glass.

“There. That wasn’t so hard.”

“You need to stop bringing me drinks. People might say something,” he cocked a brow, more in warning than playfulness, and took half the glass in one draw. The glacial liquid cooled a parched throat and smoothed his voice from it’s rougher timbre.

_Just ask her. Only one. Iggy won’t mind._

“People say a lot of things.”

“You can say that again,” he murmured with a cocked head.

“I’d rather you said it. You’ve been quiet,” she said gently. “Too quiet. You sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, far too curtly for his own preference. He shook his head and gripped the glass, eyes scanning the room so that they didn’t have to meet hers. The moment of silence stretched out for too long, put its hook in him and pulled his focus to her.

“Want me to leave you to it?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Hell no.”

A frown played over his features as he reconsidered the force of his words, as though he’d grabbed her hand and stopped her from moving away. It was too much control for an event where she was free to move, speak and act as she pleased. He had no place in telling her what to do, especially if it were for his own preferences.

“Unless, y’know, you gotta get going or something,” he coughed, forcing the words up though they were nothing short of polite.

“Nah.”

He turned around again and caught her while she swept her hair from her face, rubbed her temple and absently let her fingers rest on the scar for a moment too long. Her eyes were shifting around the room. She pinned the captain’s location time and time again, always darting her eyes away as though he’d know she was watching him.

She met brown eyes and felt some of the tension lift from her, as if the chain coiling around her throat were being loosened, link by link. Rena shrugged lightly and leant her shoulder against the pillar, firmly settling in.

“You got me out. I can’t do the same for you, so might as well keep you company, if you want,” she said quietly. It was far from bashful, just hushed, as though she were ashamed to ask it.

Gladio drew a deep breath. The words that left him weren’t the ones he’d had in mind but they were said with just as much hope. He couldn’t afford the distraction of a dance, especially not with her. Something else, something more their style would have to do.

“You gonna try to make me laugh?”

“Oh…” she trailed off, eyes flicked up to meet with his and their colour deeper as the fun of the game filtered through like sunlight. “I’m gonna try to make you shit yourself laughing. You ever done that?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, tonight’s your lucky night, big man.”

“Sure is.” He nodded, glancing at her again as his eyes met the point furthest left before he scanned the room towards the right. He meant it. Out of a room full of people, his company was the best that he could hope for. “It sure is.”


	9. Affliction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Rena's role with the Guard develops, another occurrence at training warrants an apology. Gladio's turn to host dinner for the group allows an opportunity...

The hall was quiet. The gentle pops of a stretched neck were a lighter note on top of the steady beat of hushed boots. Hands ran through dark hair, feeling bare and restless.

Gladio stepped out into the rooftop paddock and took a deep breath. City air was clearer at this height. The heavy, oily scent of the roads and their traffic hung low. This was as clean as it got without leaving the walls.

In a trained motion, repeated so many times it was simply in his nature, he scanned the area. Weapons rack, waist high wall, bench, more wall, legs, more wall, ben-.

Strong legs. Black training leggings, a white rag, grey tank, arms up and pale hands disappearing as they gathered the warmer tones of her curls in silence. She was watching the city as rush hour began. Hair collected and being fixed in place by a thin black band, she smoothed the back of her neck before squeezing it, holding herself up by the scruff as her head fell forwards. Rena lifted her head again, hand passing to hold onto her shoulder.

“Morning.”

Her voice seeped into his skin like coffee; invigorating, smooth, warm and earthy. Familiar and comforting.

“Mornin’.”

“You alright?”

Rena turned and leant against the wall as Gladio crossed the paddock, setting his holdall down on the bench and tugging another self-conscious hand through his hair. He nodded and unzipped his bag.

“Yeah,” he groaned. A yawn pulled at him. He muffled the exhale as he pulled the hoodie over his head and shook to keep himself awake while he wrapped it around his hand and tucked it into the bag. “You?”

At the lack of response, he glanced over his shoulder. Hand held in front of her mouth, she yawned against her wrist and loosened from being held taut.

“M’fine, but stop making me yawn,” she smirked. After a moment, it faded, replaced by a subtle frown over curious eyes. “Lose your hat?”

“Kinda.”

Gladio fought the urge to run his hand through his hair, to conceal it. He’d always found it too dark, and recently, too dull. It was uniform; no bright strands of colour. Still, it wasn’t as bad as when he’d first had his Crownsguard cut; _that_ had been the beginning of era of the hat.

“ _Kinda_ as in…”

He glanced up from under his lashes and failed to stop touching his hair again. Once his hand rested at the back of his neck, he gave it a gentle tug to prompt his own answer.

“Forgot it.”

Rena smirked again. The hand at his nape shifted as his shoulders relaxed.

“I gonna miss batting that thing off your head,” she admitted. A pale hand emerged from her bag and began to wrap her hands in fresh linen.

He snorted and rooted around in his bag for his water bottle. Six feet away, she was quiet and focused, readying herself with a practiced rhythm. He felt the end of his hair tickle at his knuckles and twitched the hand away.

“Think it needs cut?”

Sitting on the bench nearby and resting her forearms on her knees, she slowed in her task. Brown eyes met raised brows and raised his own in response.

“You’re asking me?” Rena cocked her head before shaking it. She gestured loosely to her own hair as she continued. “You’ve seen… _that…_ and you’re asking me?”

Gladio pouted briefly before nodding. “Yeah.”

“Up to you. You’ll suit what you like. If in doubt, grow it out,” she supplied with half smile. “If you don’t like it, cut it. If you don’t like it after that, don’t worry, it’ll grow back… Still don’t know why you’re asking me, though.”

“You’re the only one around,” he said, hissing a breath after a cold drink.

This was easy. Just the two of them, as if the others didn’t exist. Words were free to flow, many incredibly crass. There were no formal graces. There were lines they both obeyed and steered clear of. Subjects that were not to be touched. But they were few, kept close together, and easy enough to dance around.

A door closed lightly from within the hall, with footsteps following the echo.

“You jinxed it,” she tilted her head, tone reluctant as she watched them appear.

Ignis, can of ebony in hand and steadying a holdall with the other, waved briefly before setting the bag down at a bench. He quickly strode back into the hallway and shortly emerged with two groaning, whining specimens, barely conscious in the blank light of the cloudy morning. Ignis abandoned them in the centre of one of the paddocks’ segments, defined by the markings of sun-bleached paint. They leant against each other to stay up. If either gazed at the ground with longing or began to droop, Ignis would prowl past and offer threat with a disciplinary glare.

“Good morning,” he said, already even voice turned thick by the silt of cheap, instant coffee.

They responded in unison, rough and smooth. “Morning.”

As Ignis set about straightening the other two, Rena got up from the bench and began to sway on her feet.

“You ready?”

Gladio stood and summoned his broadsword. He raised a brow. “Are you?”

“Ah, fuck,” she muttered.

Rena closed her eyes to concentrate and took a deep breath. It was almost there. She could nearly feel it; the fizzing that just tickled her fingertips like static on an old screen. It felt dusty and soft, but alive.

Within the armiger, weapons had an almost magnetic pull. Once close enough to a hilt, and the steel would do the rest as long as it was caught. Timing was crucial, like the clutch in a car; after a while, it was instinctive.

Focused and calm, her fingers twitched gently, searching for the hilt. Faint blue crystals, no bigger than grains of rice, sparked in her hand and burned away as soon as the next came. Gladio’s brow rose. He dipped his free hand into the armiger. Faint ripples came from forward, right and high. He could feel her. Two fish in a dark pond, only made aware of each other by their movements. Gladio kept his to a minimum; merely letting the smoky waters shift through his fingers as she closed in on her target.

A door handle clicked softly.

She darted away, flinching back to the shadows. A quiet curse escaped from behind gritted teeth.

“Almost,” he said. Without hesitation, he quickly swept the armiger and pulled out her sword.

“But still not,” she shook her head. She took the blade carefully and weighed it in her hand. “Thanks.”

A slender figure, sleek and black, emerged from the hall. Expression as sharp as his katana, the deep tan of Cor Leonis was a warm hue on the cool, clouded day.

The training paddock was a place of muted colours. The pale stone walls, paler sky and black accents of the benches, weapon racks and the uniforms, recruit or sworn, left them in a monochrome world interrupted only by humanities. Hair in varying shades, skin tones, bright eyes. Hues from cosmic blue, all the way to rich, earthen brown, were watching him from underneath growing frowns or raised brows.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Marshal.”

He strode amongst them, speaking as he did.

“I’m going to be observing today, make sure you’re all up to standard. Your first field expedition is in a week. You’ve all been briefed, and you’ll be briefed again before you go. We have that week, and gods-willing you won’t need it, to prepare and make sure you’re ready. As for now, continue. I’ll be watching.”

Cor stood by the balcony wall, cup of coffee in hand, and sniffed as they set about. The mere presence and low, thunderous rumble of the marshal had been enough to fully wake Prompto. Noctis, however, was still drooping. His head repeatedly dipped forwards. It wasn’t until he almost collapsed in a heap that he shook himself awake, sapphire eyes wide as they blinked in their bright surroundings.

Tongue pressed between his lips, Prompto held his breath and focused. After an initial crackle and fizzing away, a second burst put the revolvers into his hands. His hushed yet victorious ‘yes’ was enough to gather Rena’s attention. A smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. As she brought her focus back, it passed over Cor. He leant against the wall, ankles crossed and sipped his coffee, hiding a thin smile behind the paper cup.

They set about. Ignis, lance in hand, observed as Prompto cast the guns back into the armiger and began to spar with Noctis. The blond’s self-defence had come a long way, but there was further to go. Whenever either took a move too fast and careless for his liking, Ignis would put his lance between them to slow the fight.

At the other side, metal was beginning to sing. The initially steady rhythm of familiar blades picked up as both forced bed-warm bodies to move before they could cool in the autumn morning.

“Where we going again?”

Rena gasped in mock surprise. “You mean you haven’t read the brief?! Shame on you.”

Gladio snorted and blocked another close brush with a dark, quiet blade.

“I _did_ , but I fell asleep.”

“You fell asleep reading the almighty brief?!” she demanded, voice kept to a hushed shout. The keen frown and quick step forwards had Gladio held back by his own sword as she pushed it against his chest. “I’m amazed he’s letting you go.”

“Have to. Charmless needs a _bodyguard,”_ he strained, forcing her back. She stepped aside and met his sword with a sharp, clear note.

“Needs advice, too,” she mused.

The fractional opening he left was swiftly snapped up as the flat of her blade tapped his side.

_Get over it._

“Yeah, he does,” Gladio admitted, blocking her next strike. “We all do.”

“In that case, can I have some? Please.”

Thick brows gathered in a frown before rising, still pinched together.

“Depends. What d’you need?”

In a momentary pause in the spar, she weaved her head to the side before cutting through thin air, cold and fresh with cloud, and met his blade again.

“How-,”

Gladio blocked as she came for his shoulder, only for her to redirect to his hip.

“The _fuck_ -,”

Steel rang clearly as he held the edge of her blade with the flat of his own.

“Am I-,”

Rena held firm as he pushed back.

“Supposed-,”

The grating of razor edges against each other echoed into the hall and out over the thrum of traffic below.

“To teach-,”

The sound was cut by another sharp, heavy note of contact. Blades pressed close, equally forced as she stayed locked on him.

“You?”

She was too close. Close enough that he could see that bold brown dot in her eye. Gladio pushed and dodged to the side as she spun for his ribs.

“Just me, or all of us?”

“All of you,” she nodded. “It’s not that it’s you guys, I just don’t know how to teach. I’m not exactly fuckin’ stellar with people.”

“You can say that again,” he snorted. His laugh was cut short when her sword flashed through the pale morning sky. The flat side of the cool steel hovered inches from his neck.

“Proof enough?”

“Yeah, I think that’ll do it,” he nodded, sweeping her sword away with his own.

The momentum of the spin made edges run along each other and sing clear as they rose through the octave. Their strikes came faster, held to a beat they dictated and kept. Tempo was matched and overtaken as time passed. Harder. Parries were jarred and forced to maintain safe distance. She dodged, ducking under a high swing and standing again to halt it when he spun back around.

Aside from the meeting of steel, boots kept light and quick, and his own lungs crying _faster, more_ , a separate sound slipped past.

“… just been _distracted_ , lately.”

“That’s not like him.”

“Precisely. I’ve been thinking and-,”

A loud clang of steel came as swords crossed. Sharper green eyes were under a questioning frown.

“Concentrate,” Rena said quietly, shoving his blade away from her shoulder. She’d stopped it with an inch between her and the sharp edge.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she shook her head, pulling the snapped hair tie from her hair and tucking it into her pocket. She swept the curls back and took stance, motioning for him to attack.

The spar continued, Gladio picking up speed to keep himself focused. If swords moved in a hard flurry, setting sparks like lightning, he was too busy to listen at the same time. She met his every strike and gave her own in return. Practice had made her lethal. Swift. Rena knew how he moved, when to strike and when to let him think she wouldn’t. She barely had to think; only to see and react. To hear the growls and heaved breaths and translate them into how much force she’d need to hold him back.

Gladio was able to do the same. Usually. This morning was loud.

It was full of chains, voices and heels.

“He needs to focus, I know, but-,”

Chains. Glasses. Violins.

“It’s not that he’s not capable, he _is_ , more than anyone-,”

Chains.

“He knows he needs to keep his head, Ignis.”

Chains.

“I know, but sometimes I wonder if he ever leaves it.”

Silence.

A sickening thud followed by silence. Gladio’s knuckles danced with effervescent warmth, spreading through his hand and fading into his forearm.

Brown met green and found them hard. Not just unreadable, or stony. _Hard._

Rena stretched her jaw until it popped, gathered the metallic wine in her mouth and spat onto the ground at her side. Eyes aflame under a frown, he glanced at the small red stain. His expression softened immediately, looking back up to see her lip split and bleeding.

She turned and walked away.

Jaw immediately clenching hard enough to drive his teeth back into his gums, Gladio shook his head and watched as hips swayed with the white rag. A curse caught in his throat. He marched towards his bag, casting the sword away to free his hands for the search. He still had a hi-potion; it’d be enough to stem bleeding, mend smaller fractures in her jaw or teeth, even soothe a concussion. Gladio was barely halfway to the bench when a low rumble interrupted the taut quiet.

“You’re not done.”

Cor’s frown had sharpened, standing free of the wall and shifting an icy glare between the two of them. The others had stopped. Two pairs of wide blue eyes, one over an open, quivering mouth. Thin brows had pinched minimally over jade hues. Gladio mentally damned him for his refusal to betray his thoughts. Nothing more than disappointment left an old friend. Disappointment and concern.

She’d stopped dead. The throbbing in her jaw was already fading, metal filling her mouth and seeping into her mind. After hearing the fizz of a sword being summoned, Rena shook her head and rolled her shoulders before turning and stalking towards him. Her grip on the sword tightened.

In stance and fixed on him, she kept her breathing steady. Gladio opposed her. Already frowning, his lips pressed together as he swung the broadsword in his hand. Blood pounded in his ears, deafening him to the scraping of boots as she came at him.

Rena struck fast and hard. Steel met steel with jarring force, enough to throw sparks from the smooth blades. The already deep green darkened and shut him out completely, despite never leaving fiery hues.

She lunged forwards, blade sending a sharp breeze over his neck. He blocked and pushed back. Stepping away, lips parted to reveal gritted teeth and a slow ooze of blood. The satin drop crested her lip before stretching down and falling onto the ground.

Gladio’s gut was burning. Bones blackened in the smoke as she took up her attacks again. Her strikes were hairs away from landing when he parried them.

Half-blinded by her hair, she worked on shifting memory and instinct. Rena’s movements snapped, biting towards him and forcing him back. Swords crossed. As they began to shift from stalemate, Rena slipped aside, grabbed a fistful of his shirt at the shoulder and hauled him towards the blades.

She pulled hers away in time and trusted him to do the same. Gladio stumbled. He turned fast, led by his weapon and using its momentum to pull him. Jarred by blocking the strike, she shoved the blade away and left him exposed. The tip of her sword pressed to the base of his throat.

Gladio followed the length of the dark metal to one darker still. Half a snarl on his face, her own features were beginning to pull into something vicious.

He cut through the air, batting her sword aside as he jolted his head back to avoid having his own blood spilled. Rena didn’t move back. She stepped closer, ducking below the rest of his swing before catching his sword again. Her own was reinforced by a bound palm on the steel. His was held in both hands. They shook against each other. The mutual tremors forced them to still, cancelling each other out with shared power. He had the brawn, she had the angle and enough of her own to match.

The blades pushed. Edges cut along each other with a smooth chord. The loss of resistance let them fall forwards. Closer. Rena’s sword was against his throat, cutting at his stubble when he swallowed. The edge of the broadsword was tilting her chin up.

Inches from each other, defiance, stubbornness and sheer skill were matched. The darkening in Gladio’s gut changed. It lost its bristles and smoothed, becoming sleek and clawed. Blood began to pool in his belly and burn under his skin. The beading of sweat did nothing to relieve it.

He was staring at challenge itself. At hair swept by swift motion, darkened where it clung to a sweat-dampened neck. Lips swollen and reddened, the split poured scarlet over her chin. A droplet had already carved a path over her neck, furthered every time her pulse forced past.

Rena looked him in the eye, and further. Amber eyes were burning. Dark anger swelled in his pupils. The hungrier tones of fire were bright around them. Consuming. From their perspective, the forest held firm. Dark green, made unclear and showing no further than she allowed, dark clouds had removed the dappled light that provided guidance.

Gladio glanced down, locking on lips that made his own part. Hers closed, let her swallow the gathering mouthful of blood, before opening again. It was less a blooming rose, more a bloodied wound reopened.

He wanted them regardless. Craved them. Gladio had to meet, learn, feel and be felt by them. He needed darker bruises. He wanted to know them, and for them to understand.

“That’s enough.”

They held for another moment, held as much be steel as magnetism. Tearing away felt wrong; this was unfinished. Rena was the first to lower her blade. She stabbed it into the ground and left it steady as she walked away, white rag swinging as she tucked it back into her pocket.

The flag of stubborn surrender is rarely without blood. 

* * *

His hands were heavy.

All he held was his keys, but they were heavy too. It seemed metal was all his hands knew. He rubbed at his face while trying to get his key into the door. Eyes still closed, fingertips ran down the doorframe and found the handle, then the lock. The innate sense tying the sensation of one hand to the other helped him. The lock clicked, and the door swung open.

_Don’t slam it._

_You won’t wake them up._

_Don’t slam it anyway._

Gladio brought himself across the threshold, leaden feet ignoring the welcome mat as he gently pushed the door shut with his elbow and turned the key again. With one resounding click, he was home. He was alone.

After toeing off his shoes, he padded further into the annex. What little light survived the high walls of the garden and glowed from the solar lights along the paths made itself at home with him. A dim yellow that barely acted to illuminate anything, it was softer on tired eyes. The holdall was brought onto the table and routinely gutted. Laundry, empty water bottles, his current read and, palely glowing in the depths, a potion. Gladio looked at it for a moment as it cast his hands in the arctic hue.

He silenced the ramblings of a tired mind, and allowed himself relief from the blinding blue, with the closing of the zip.

Still in the dark, he left the bag on its usual chair before heading for the kitchen. Clothes were thrown into the washing machine, bottles put in the dishwasher and eyes blinked away the illumination of a full refrigerator. One arm resting on the top of the door, the other hand propping himself up against the top of the appliance at arm’s length and a locked elbow.

Gladio puffed out his cheeks. He glanced at his watch. Nine. Sluggish eyes behind increasingly heavy lashes swept the fridge as he did rooms. Most of it was fresh vegetables, a box of leftovers and enough meat to tide him over for the week. Then came the top shelf. Glowing in solitude was a slice of Jared’s renowned apple pie; one of Gladio’s favourites. The mouth-watering medley of tart fruit, warming spice and rich pastry was always a temptation. A treat. Something to keep him sane. Hot and paired with more scoops of vanilla ice cream than was necessary, it was an experience.

Gladio closed the door and headed for a hot shower. Today was clinging to his skin like silted water. Blind, but knowing his way through the darkness, tiles met socked feet. The shower barely stuttered, immediately providing the pounding pressure, but not enough heat.

He washed his hair with harsh hands. After shaking the water from it and scrubbing down, trying to replace the day with the scents of sage and salt, Gladio hoped hotter water would rinse it all away. Even as he pressed his forehead against soaked tiles, steadying himself against ceramics, he couldn’t remove that which had worked under his skin. No amount of scalding water massaging the back of his neck could give him that clarity. That relief. Freedom.

He missed having his own mind.

Dried and dressed in grey sweatpants, he brushed the bitterness in his mouth back to an aftertaste. His hair was half dry and already beginning to tickle his nape with transient touches. Gladio flopped heavily into bed.

After too long behind heavy lashes, he was still awake. On a whim, he left bed with a stiff groan and rubbed his eyes all the way to the kitchen, relying on blind memory of his own home. Calloused fingertips were sensitive enough to find the pie. Finding the book was pure luck.

The soft click of his bedside lamp had always been the first note of a lullaby. It was the first footstep of an adventure; and marked the last if he was still awake to turn it off again. The warm glow it gave his bedroom revealed the finer details of gold lettering on the archaic spines of books older than even the main family house, let alone the little annex he called his own. It gave tanned skin its healthy hue, as opposed to the dark that stole him away until he was pale; defined only by his endings and the ink in his skin; by what everyone else saw.

Gladio sat, cross-legged, in the middle of his bed. Book open in his lap and pie at his side, he tried to ignore the deviation toothpaste gave to the spiced medley. It didn’t taste of anything, really. Nowhere near as sweet and warming as usual, pastry cold and clinging to the roof of his mouth. Three forkfuls and he’d had enough. It weighed claggy in his stomach, sitting still when it should’ve been working through him, filling him with the cosy comfort of as many autumns as he could remember and begging for more. It should have left him full and longing. Not empty and resigned to staying that way.

He’d read the same page a dozen times. Not a word had stamped into his head and remained, inky and permanent enough for him to continue. He tried again, reading aloud to try and make the prose tangible. After circling through the top three lines of a paragraph, confusing words and head nodding, Gladio called it a night. He shut the book with a hollow clap and left it on his bedside.

Light out and plunged into the velveteen comfort of darkness, Gladio collapsed onto his back and splayed his limbs, hoping the ease and space would lull him into rest. Thick lashes met. He rested a heavy hand on his stomach to feel the rise and fall; the steady rhythm that told him to sleep. Begged him. He’d been awake for too long but had done too little to warrant being so tired. The sheer weight of his body pressed him into the mattress. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling until it faded to inky black.

It was too quiet. He could hear everything. The quiet shifting of the river sang through empty night air and slipped through the double glazing of his windows. His breathing played its part, both absence and presence paddling along and flowing with the currents. When he turned his head and tried to settle, his heartbeat only sounded like the footsteps of time.

Blinded and squinting at his phone, Gladio quickly turned on a radio station that could make him drowsy in broad daylight and set the volume until the monotone voice of the host was barely audible.

A guitar turned in on itself as smoke-soft vocals accompanied. He blindly reached and turned the music up, pulled more by curiosity than anything else. Warm strings emerged from the shadows, earthen and sincere.

_Apologise._

Gladio picked up the phone and blinked at the bright lock screen

 _She’ll be asleep_.

_No she won’t._

He locked the phone again, dismissing the blinding artificial light, and dropped it next to him on the bed. There was so much room. Even when his heels cleared the end of the bed, it was too much. Gladio shifted from the centre of the bed, shuffling over to one side and letting his head fall heavy on a pillow.

His hand fell into the warm patch he’d left behind and flattened against the sheets.

_She wouldn’t pick up anyway._

_So leave a message. Make an effort._

He needed a beer. Maybe something stronger. He needed alcohol to run this race for him and wrap him in the silky arms of its drowsy embrace. He needed the nectar of comfort that made thinking too much effort.

Gladio also needed to stay sober. Noct may have been safe and sound in his apartment, but there was no guarantee it’d stay that way.

_Don’t be an asshole. Apologise. Leave a text._

_Don’t say it through text; that’s just lazy. Say it to her face._

_Her face._

She’d never looked as hard as she had today. As if pain didn’t exist. As if she’d simply had enough and instead of drawing a line in the sand, she’d built a brick wall. Already unable to understand her thoughts, he’d stopped having them shared with him altogether. Yet it was as much like her as the rare moments of expression; as her frowns and raised brows, quirked lips or drunken grins.

Gladio got all the way to unlocking his phone and opening his contacts. All he had to do was press one green button and hope to the gods that he’d be able to speak. Whether or not she forgave him was her decision.

Stuck in his sober circling, he paused long enough to catch the final soft lyrics. Once the monotony of the host took up again, he searched the lyrics, found the song and opened it in another app. He pressed repeat and locked the phone. It rested still and light on his chest. Music did his thinking for him.

Gladio let the melody run a thumb over his cheek, stroking upwards as sound followed the contours of his features. It slipped under his jaw and blended, pouring into his ears like softened liquors and gentle words, smooth and low. His fingertips found his knuckles, smoothing the static fizz they’d held since the morning. He tried to press it out of existence.

Sick of the ceiling, his head fell to the side and faced the bedroom window that would eventually frame a sunrise he’d have left before seeing.

The bright lights of the city centre were close enough to see, but far enough to be blurred. Thousands of brake lights and streetlamps gave the metropolis a gentle, burning glow. The Infernian’s flame had been tamed and used for convenience. A heavily clouded sky reflected the light softly. The fine points of the city were swept, like spatters of paint into a broad brushstroke, over the sky.

The gentler light washed into an unlit room. She abandoned the half bowl of rice she’d forced herself to eat and left hours before. Even with fresh herbs, there was nothing enticing about it. Of all the things she’d made herself eat, from roadkill to entrails to insects, she was damning that rice. It stuck to her throat and threatened to bring the heavy rest up with it.

False mint was fresher in her mouth. Sweeter than blood, and somehow dishonest for it. Chalky and cool toothpaste was a poor mimicry of more silken elements. Temporary. Insincere.

The throbbing of her jaw had faded to a dull pulse and the split in her lip had reopened several times but had bled less with each. She hadn’t felt it at first. It was the fierceness that had left him, swept away by the air forced from his lungs. That was what told her. All she knew was that the edge of her sword had been one instant away from splitting him open at the belly, like an animal.

He had every right.

Her reaction wasn’t warranted. Rena could taste blood again as she relived the worst moments of it. Spitting had been vulgar enough. Turning away, turning back, accepting the Marshal’s command without challenge, letting blood flow, and finally looking him in the eye had been disrespectful and overdramatic. Running through it again only made her jaw clench and brows pinch.

She was being watched.

“What?”

A hoarse whine left Ochre’s throat. Rena glanced at her bed. The brief, bright light of the phone turned the room a pale blue, then faded again. She approached with a soft frown.

_[New Message from Prom]_

_Hey! You okay? Didn’t see you after this morning._

The phone buzzed again and made her flinch as it trembled in her hand.

_I know you don’t want to talk about it._

_You don’t have to._

_Just wondering if you’re okay._

 

_Yep, I’m all good. Just about to sleep. See you tomorrow, you can tell me how lunch went._

The instant wave of dots as he typed made her sway on her feet, trying to lull herself back down. Prompto’s replies were sent on swift wings, and landed like a flock of swallows, sharp-tailed and vivacious.

_It. Was. AWESOME._

_I’ll give you all the deets tomorrow._

_And yeah! Sleep!_

_Another early one tomorrow ;-;_

_G’night! x_

 

_Alright, don’t break your thumbs._

_Get some sleep; no more caffeine, remember? You decided._

_Night Prom._

 

_:P_

Shaking her head, she left Prompto’s chatter behind and was witness to the recent messages. He was third on the list.

_Don’t. He needs the sleep._

_Right. Course he does._

_Enough._

She switched on her alarms for the morning and left the phone on the floor. The darker shape of Seyna was bold against the sheets, tail sweeping in a slow rhythm as she plonked her head down with a low grumble.

Rena tilted to stare at the ceiling until her vision fizzed and sparked in the dark. She brought her focus back down, rubbing at her eye as a wet nose pressed insistently against her thigh.

“Fine.”

Seyna’s tail sped up, brushing against the sheets as Rena set herself down on the bed. Still too warm to sleep under the sheets, she turned onto her side as the dogs rearranged around her. Ochre stretched out against her, back to back, and yawned with a high end note, tail brushing drowsily. Seyna, ever the loyal companion, curled into a ball, nudging under her arm. A warm tongue made her nose scrunch.

“Alright, fine,” she whispered, hand settling between the dog’s shoulder blades.

Fingers played in thick fur, warmed by familiar company. She couldn’t close her eyes yet. The city was too bright for that. No matter how heavy her eyes, or how tiredness filled her bones with lead, sleep was elusive. It had been a long day; an earlier start than she’d had for weeks. A tiring training session, busy shift and a longer run than usual with the dogs.

Their cosy scent, all petrichor and damp straw, pulled over her like a blanket. But she could still smell lemon. Leather. The warmth of a smokeless fire; heat-tinged air. He was hanging over her like a cloud, neither raining, nor moving on.

Eyes held open by some stubborn tugging, subconscious and damned for it’s efficacy, landed on the western window. The dull light of the city was seeping into the cloud; warm ink pulled to stain an already dark sheet of paper. It was a starless night. Heavy black clouds, blushed shadowy and foreboding, were ripe with rain.

The city was too dusty. Too dry and archaic for it, no matter how modern its conveniences. It needed a good soak. It needed brought to life.

She willed it to rain.

* * *

 “You’re _what?”_

“Don’t make a fuss, Gladio. It’s just a cold. Best he doesn’t pass it on to anyone else-,”

A weak groan in the background made Gladio frown. Phone pinned between his cheek and shoulder, he set the knife down on the board.

“He got Blondie?”

“Afraid so. He wouldn’t have if he’d coughed into a _tissue_ and not his hands.”

A voice so hoarse it was barely audible spoke up, squeaking around the edges of a tight throat.

“Saving the planet, Specs.”

“Screw the blanet! I’m dying here!” a thick tone cut in.

The heavy sigh Ignis always paired with narrowed eyes came through the phone. Gladio snorted quietly, picking up the next fragrant clove of garlic and mincing it.

“Get some clothes on, you’ve already caught a cold. Next option is catching your death, you _nrgh!_ ” Ignis warned, the sound of frustration leaving him quietly enough to be revealed to Gladio alone. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” he replied, scooping the garlic into a ramekin. “So, when you leaving the plague house and coming for something to eat?”

“That’s the thing.”

Gladio’s knife stopped, halfway through peeling a thumb of ginger. He put the aromatic down and picked up the phone, moving it from the right shoulder to his left ear.

“Prompto, ever the independent man about town, has already overdosed on cough medicine once in the last five hours-,”

“I buked it all back up though! No harm no foul, right?!”

“And Noctis fell asleep in the bath-,”

“It was too hot, I blacked out,” he rasped. After the shuffling steps dragged away, Ignis put the phone to his cheek again and continued.

“…wouldn’t have fainted if you’d eaten something, now would you? _Anyway_ , point being I don’t trust these degenerate invalids to take care of themselves, so-,”

“Doctor Iggy to the rescue? Just like when we were kids?”

“Supervising _Nurse_ Scientia, thank you very much, is on call, I’m afraid.”

He said it so smoothly. Gladio remembered it being said with far more stops and starts. Ignis had long outgrown his stammer, helped by an accent he strengthened and a slow enough speech rhythm. If tired and exceptionally drunk, that silver tongue could still be made to trip. It had crippled him once, forced him silent for the first few months of his assignment as a chamberlain.

When they’d first met, they’d both been scrawny things. Limbs longer than they were used to and growing too fast to be broad and strong. They had strength enough for the tasks of childhood. Shoulders broad enough for backpacks. Just the right amount of grip and determination to climb trees, whenever they were unobserved of course.

A crooked smile pulled the corner of Gladio’s mouth as he recalled a single occasion they’d clambered up an oak in the Citadel gardens, only to fall silent and wide-eyed when Cor decided to take lunch under the lush branches. The real problem came when he began to doze in the lulling afternoon heat. For an hour.

The brotherhood found in the arms of a tree was one they’d since held strong.

“… and you. I hope you weren’t too far into things.”

Gladio puffed out his cheeks and took in the countertop. It was covered in a patchwork of bowls, chopping boards, piled high with peppers, carrot ribbons, sugar snap peas and leafier greens.

“Nah, I’ll just put it in the refrigerator. Should keep.”

“Sorry. I know you were looking forward to hosting.”

He had been. More recent events had soured the taste in his mouth, but he was determined, if nothing else. He could coexist. Their happiness was theirs and, by extension, his own.

He felt the hilt reinforce his fist as it threw into her jaw again.

The force of his own punch landed in his gut. He’d sworn an oath and already been given one scar for keeping it. Less of his own blood, but he still bled for it. In one instant, he’d cut the rope he was trying to cast out to sea and lost his hook. In the same swing, he’d worn the rope already tying them thin.

A quick frown flashed onto his features before he shook his head briskly.

“S’okay. There’s always next time,” he noted, packing the vegetables into boxes before stacking them in the refrigerator.

“Enjoy the evening, Gladio. You’ve still got Rena for company… Might I suggest apologising?”

_Oh. Yeah._

_Shit._

“You can, but it was already in the plan.”

“Which plan, precisely?”

Gladio flattened his hand on the newly cleared worktop. “You’re really gonna make me say it?”

“I am,” Ignis said quietly. Gladio could see him now. A hot cup of coffee in hand, herding the invalids back to bed with a lance while maintaining a ten foot distance in the name of containment as a matter of public health.  

“The ‘apologise to her for punching her in the face’ plan. There. Happy?” he asked, feeling the words bitter his tongue. “She’s not here yet. Could just take her to a bar. Charmless is bedbound, right?”

“That he is.”

“No I’m not!”

“You will be once I’ve broken your legs, now get back under those covers!”

Gladio’s eyebrows raised as he suppressed a laugh. “Nurse Iggy’s in the house. That’s the new plan. Bar. If you don’t mind.”

“Course I don’t,” he replied. “I’m surprised she hasn’t arrived yet. She’s always on time, if not early.”

“She was early to yours, that’s for sure.”

The words left his mouth fast and blunt, far more so than he intended. Gladio gritted his teeth and glared at the sink.

“We were busy-,”

_Should’ve kept your mouth shut._

“but she did learn very well-,”

_Ramuh. Buddy. Pal. Do me a favour. Strike me down._

“and she didn’t half perform. I can’t quite remember how many partners-.”

“What?!”

“At the party. If it hadn’t been for her lessons-.”

Gladio narrowed his eyes. “…Lessons?”

“Dancing lessons. She asked me for a few pointers, I gave her a week of lessons. Dinner that Thursday did intervene, admittedly…”

Gladio placed the phone onto the counter as gently as he could and let Ignis ramble to himself.

_Dancing lessons._

The heels. The hair. The touch, and no flinching. Early to arrive, and last to leave.

Ignis hadn’t defended her in their spar the other morning. He’d defended Gladio.

The pieces fell together like runes, spelling out the truth for him. His stomach flipped. Realisation dawned with warmth. It washed over his skin, set loose by the banishing of a heavy cloud, and bathed him in all the smooth caramel of an autumn day. He fought an incredulous curse back from his open mouth and picked the phone up again.

_You dumbass._

“… last I heard, she’d said it was nothing to be concerned about.”

“Dancing lessons?”

Ignis scoffed lightly as he stopped. “Yes. Dancing lessons. Gladio, are you alright? You went very quiet.”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

_Really good._

“Right, well, as I was saying, the report-,”

Three soft knocks echoed through the quiet annex.

“She’s here-,”

“Gladio, wait-,”

“I gotta go. Take care of the plague victims for me, yeah?”

Ignis sighed heavily. “I’m the only one that ever does it anyway.”

“Great,” Gladio returned, trying to fight a grin from his face as he hung up.

The sky wasn’t cloudless. There was still some truth obscured and left ambiguous. Assumptions were to be taken with caution, lest he be misled by his own racing mind again. He made the decision to make no more.

His smile faded to pressed lips. Dancing lessons may have been the seed, after all. That flower was growing in their garden. Even if it wasn’t to bloom, what was to say she’d want to try with someone else? Maybe flowers weren’t her thing. She had no time for them. They grew, gave sweet scent, and then died. They gave nothing more than themselves back. Often, it was fuss over a transient beauty that rarely lasted the year.

Gladio tucked his phone into the pocket of his jeans and reached for the door handle.

There she was. Hair loose and messy, hands gathered in front of her in eternal play and eyes bright. The beginnings of the sunset revealed copper tones and set smooth shadows across her. Autumn was a good look. Dark jeans, flannel shirt tied together at the front over a black top, she was the season incarnate. Comfort and practicality at the forefront.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” she said quietly. “You alright?”

He gathered his response and finished drying his hands, slinging the towel over his shoulder.

“I’m good. You?”

“I’m alright, same as always,” Rena nodded, then tilted her head

After watching in endearment for a moment too long, Gladio remembered himself and smoothed his shirt out before bringing the towel into his hands again and folding it compulsively.

“Uh, Noct and Blondie are sick. Iggy’s taking care of ‘em, so…”

“Want me to go?”

Gladio damned unreadable eyes again. They gave him nothing to go on. Even the tone of her voice, which was giving more clues as the weeks had drawn on, had been somewhere between reluctant and eager. _He_ was reluctant and eager. The lack of company put him centre stage, and she was offering him an out.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he shook his head, stepping away from the door to open passage into the hall. “Come on in.”

“Shoes?” she asked, lightly pointing towards the navy sneakers, laces still white and fresh.

He wiggled his own foot, the black trainer scuffed smooth. “It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yep,” he said, closing the door quietly as she stepped inside.

Gladio, feeling all too cramped in the small hallway as she stood no more than a foot away from him, began to pad further into his home. Quieter footsteps followed his own, barely audible above the clamour of birdsong seeping in through the windows.

The garden was still lush; helped by a long summer and planned well enough to be full at most times of the year. The annex itself was a small yet comfortable bungalow, seated quietly at the end of the garden and mostly hidden from the main house. Its style had been carried over; centuries-old brickwork translated into a younger counterpart, black slate roof and large sash windows. Perfect for a bachelor.

Upon entering the open plan living room and kitchen, the house began to show his colours for him. An antique sofa, draped with the messy expanse of a slate blanket, sat opposite a large flat screen. The small wooden tables either at either end were littered with the debris of his every day; a book left face down, open at the page and his watch on one. The other held a record player. Modern conveniences were kept alongside relics. The atmosphere was old and young at the same time. It was one of settled acceptance of both the present and past.

Books were the strongest feature. There were three bookshelves in the room, all of them stacked full and neat. Small piles were tucked away in various locations on the floor, anywhere they didn’t get in the way.

“Nice place,” she noted, quickly taking in the smooth plastered walls and terracotta tiled floors.

Gladio’s hand caught on a wall as he pulled himself to stop. He glanced around the room, then back at Rena. Curious eyes were trying to stay fixed and not pry. Gladio caught them with a raised brow and nodded.

“Yeah. It fits,” he agreed.

“It does,” she said, hands in her pockets as she rocked back and forth on her feet.

Rena was a strange thing. She managed to simultaneously look as though she belonged there, and that she was walking on eggshells. At the gentle pull of a smile, Gladio ducked back around the wall and allowed himself a full grin.

“Oh shit, I forgot.”

He leant back out around the wall so fast he nearly broke his nose on it.

Rucksack swung around to her front, she withdrew her hand from the depths and held out a bar of chocolate.

“Noct said you liked the dark stuff,” she nodded, eyebrows raised as he stared at the chocolate. Eyes like soft earth flicked up to meet hers. Rena half shrugged and held it out further. “Never show up empty-handed.”

A crooked smile fixed on his face. He accepted the bar with a nod and turned it over.

“Thanks… Damn, it’s the _really_ dark one.”

“Milk’s too sweet.”

“Right?” he asked, eyes cast wide and palms upturned. “Anyway, c’mere.”

He turned and led into the kitchen. The expanses of clean, empty wooden countertops made him bite the inside of his lip. All his preparation was packed away, but at least partially done. Gladio began to question his stir fry skills. He needed something impressive, that also had little potential to go wrong. The refrigerator was opened in the hope it would provide inspiration.

Inspiration was red. Juicy. Fresh. Foolproof.

Gladio cradled an armful of tomatoes and pushed the door shut with his foot.

“Pasta okay?”

Green eyes flicked up to meet a mellow brown.

“Up to you,” she shrugged. “I’m not picky.”

“You’re the guest. What you say goes.”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly and tilted her head. “I say _you_ choose.”

“In that case,” he trailed, opening the refrigerator again and plucking out his choice. He put the packets on the counter and closed the fridge. “I choose steak.”

“Nice,” she admitted. “Right, let’s get started. _Don’t_ try to tell me to sit this one out. Twice the hands means half the work.”

“And you’d get bored.”

She snorted and let her head hang for a moment, before rising with the agreement. “ _And_ I’d get bored.”

Sleeves rolled to the elbow, she quickly washed her hands and set about rinsing the tomatoes. Gladio busied himself around the kitchen; pulling out pots and pans, opening the window and chopping garlic and herbs. A hushed quiet curled around them, plush but constricting. He was conscious of her every move as she diced the fruit and gathered a pile of luscious red on her board, swaying gently on her feet. Pale hands worked fast through practiced grace, not haste. Her skin was intact, smooth and taut over her knuckles even as scarring stained her a wine purple.

Gladio abandoned his basil and moved about the kitchen in long strides. When he stopped, she looked up to see him holding two bottles.

“Champagne, or red?” he offered, lifting each an inch higher as he named them.

Green eyes fell on bottles of a darker hue. The champagne, crowned in gold and beading with moisture promised fresh, crisp notes made fizzy and flirtatious by bubbles. The red made its bottle appear black. It had a deeper allure. Something base and undeniable. Something bloody.

“Up to you.”

He’d seen her eyes linger on the red for a fraction more.

Gladio raised a brow and gently wiggled the bottle. “Red?”

“Red,” she confirmed, nodding and trying to hide a smile. “Always liked red. It’s cathartic.”

“ _Cathartic_ ,” he said, playing the word on his tongue. “Since when were you eloquent?”

“I know my share of words, thank you very much, I just prefer fuck.”

Gladio snorted, shook his head and had to fight the grin that lingered too long.

The champagne was abandoned to the cool recesses of the refrigerator and a corkscrew rooted from a drawer. Despite a stubborn cork, it all felt so easy. A quite busyness; artisan and comfortable. The caramel hues of the autumn evening set the kitchen in a softening glow. As he left the bottle to breathe, a quick movement in his peripheral gathered his attention. Another stubborn curl had strayed. Rena tried to puff it away twice.

“Need a hand?”

“It’s alright, just- give me a second.”

She stilled the knife and stood up straight, shaking her hair back out of her eyes in a quick movement. The warm hues made it shine. It was like a river in bright sunshine. Colours and depth revealed by the light, and ever shifting as it cascaded.

A particularly loud birdsong called Gladio from his distraction and made him notice the lull between.

“You mind?” he asked, stepping away from the speaker he’d just docked his phone in. He held the tiny remote in his hand and raised a brow.

“I don’t, but please stop asking me questions,” she said quietly. “Hate making decisions.”

“Okay,” Gladio nodded.

He adjusted the volume, pressed play and left the remote on the counter as he went to fetch wine glasses from a high cupboard. It was only when he was at the other side of the kitchen that the first, cringingly recognisable notes played.

Gladio leapt back across the kitchen, grabbed the remote and pressed to skip the song. Eyes wide, he only glanced out of the corner of his eye once he heard a snort of laughter. He breathed a silent sigh of relief and was about to place the remote down again.

Then a saxophone played.

“Oh for-,” he groaned, plucking the phone from the dock.

_The Astrals hate me. Every last one of them._

As he picked a more reliable playlist, the sniggers from his left were failing to be suppressed. Gladio turned around to see an amused smile as she shook her head.

“Never trust shuffle.”

“No kidding,” he raised his brows before connecting the phone again.

Tomatoes met the pan with a soft sizzle until they smoothed and blanketed the aromatics of garlic and herbs with a sweet tang. The pair cooked quietly. Gladio took charge of the sauce and crossing the small kitchen in long strides whilst Rena seasoned the fresh sirloins and began to put together a light side salad. The red of the sauce darkened with time and reminded Gladio of a hue darker still.

_Give it more. Let it breathe._

_Let yourself breathe._

Gladio drew air until his lungs were full, then let it drift out and ease him as a sigh. He stepped back from the stove, head already turned to his target, the cupboard holding small, stout glasses, perfect for sipping water between glasses of wine, and had already made his first step before he noticed the blur of curls inches away from him.

“Hey- whoa. You okay?”

“Yep, just need the sink for a second.”

“You- oh, yeah… Right, uhh, lemme-.”

“It’s fine, I’ll go around,” she assured, and he almost heard it come as a laugh.

“You sure? I can-,” he stressed, trying to step aside and let her pass.”Yeah, I’ll- you just-.”

“Right, stay there,” Rena said firmly, holding a hand up to his chest. He glanced at it, the spice and blood painted over her fingers, then saw the smile that had bloomed on full lips and the way it balled her cheeks.

He did as he was told and bowed his head sheepishly as she stepped around him on light feet and stood by the sink. He heard the tap run, then water change its tune as she washed her hands under the cool stream. Gladio made a sneaking glance and slowed in his stirring. He could’ve sworn there was a blush on her cheeks and that the smile had been allowed to stay a little longer. His own spread at the notion.

Idle chatter passed between the two of them, mostly regarding training and staying on safe topics of the like. Before long, dinner was served and Gladio returned from a brief trip outside. He took a plate in one hand, wine glasses in the other, and led out through the patio doors and further into depths of the Amicitia garden, to the quietest corner he knew.

Hidden by trees and the thicker shrubs of the garden, a wrought iron table and chairs waited under a pergola dotted with late flowers. He’d moved the three spare seats out of the way and cushioned the remaining pair with blankets. The fairy lights left strung in the rafters, amongst the thick mass of the leafy roof, softly faded and brightened again in steady rhythm. Twenty feet from there, the garden became the river and flowed away.

Gladio hoped she didn’t see the deep breath strengthen his spine as he walked towards the table and set down his cargo. When he glanced up, she’d just joined him under the pergola, glowing warm in the cool autumn sun. Rena stayed standing and poured him a glass, looking utterly at home at what were her elements. Plants. Earth. Enough foliage to hide. Attention only focused by the chirping of birds. Each strengthened her and let a persistent gathering of her shoulders loosen. For the first time in months, she wasn’t in the city anymore.

She could breathe.

Standing alongside her, Gladio held out a hand and received the bottle, only to fill her glass before setting it, then himself, down. She’d gathered herself into the opposing chair, one knee pulled to her chest as the other leg hid under the table.

“Here’s to Thursdays,” he toasted, holding out his glass. Hers connected with a light clink.

“Cheers,” she said, eyebrows up and only sinking when the cool glass met her bottom lip.

Warm with tannins but smoothed by berry notes, the wine was supple and strong in her mouth. Gladio’s glass made it all the way to his lips before he paused, then pulled the drink away.

“I’m sorry.”

Rena quietly set her glass down on the table and met his soft frown with a more curious rendition. Gladio fought the words out. Once they reached his tongue, they’d crested the wave and would do the rest themselves. Whether they’d lap or crash at her depended on which type of shoreline she was today. He wanted to say it, and while he was sober.

He gestured briefly to his mouth and forced his eyes from the table to hers. “For the whole-.”

The shaking of her head was enough to stop him, but a smooth voice was what put him back in gear.

“Don’t worry about it. Nothing to apologise for.”

“It is.”

“It’s not,” she insisted, watching him carefully as thick brows knitted over mellow eyes, soft as soaked earth.

“Punching somebody in the face is something you apologise for,” he said, absolute and certain.

A small smirk hinted at the corner of her lip, pulling at the freshly healed split and tugging at him all over again. She fixed her eyes on the pattern of the table. “Even if they deserved it?”

“You didn’t.”

“I’ve had worse, and so have you.” The smooth voice drifted through cool air, brushing his cheek as it passed him in the quiet of the garden. “It’s fine. You don’t-.”

“Rena.”

Her eyes were on him immediately.

It didn’t sound the way it had in his head. It was unlike any of the hundreds of repetitions. Her name didn’t taste like wine. It wasn’t sweet, or rich, or even dark and earthy. It tasted like water. Fresh, cool water. The type that numbed hands and smoothed throats. The type swallowed in breathing clear mountain air. The type craved after spending too long within walls.

Her name was water. Transparent where she was not. Able to distort. Able to provide. Elemental. Transformative. Necessary.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, sincere and slow. “For that, and treating you like shit the first couple weeks.”

She was quiet for a moment, before nodding slowly and forcing herself to hold his gaze.

“Sorry for throwing it back at you.”

“Alright,” he nodded, pulling his plate into his lap and spearing a sliver of steak. He admired the marbled ruby tones of the meat. “Now dig in, before it gets cold.”

As they ate, spices blended on their tongues. The fresh, sweet herbs of the sauce were given a sharper partner in the peppery rub on the steak. The meat itself was enough to mellow out most of the heat, but some still survived to numb the inside of their mouths. Gladio made it halfway through his serving before pausing and frowning across the table.

“Sure know your way to a man’s heart,” the wine-loosened tongue whipped.

His head hadn’t even begun to drop into the satin of drunken absence, but still his mouth had betrayed him. Completely deadpan, she looked directly at him before pulling a frown somewhere between resigned certainty and confusion. How she could wear two conflicting expressions at once, he had no idea. He was merely pleased he could narrow down what she showed him.

“In the back, between the third and fourth ribs?”

Gladio snorted directly into his wine glass. He rested the glass in his lap and shook his head, only to open his eyes to a suppressed smile.

“I _meant_ a decent steak and chocolate,” Gladio said. He raised his wine in a tilted toast. “And good company.”

“Oh, yeah. That too,” she conceded.

Settling back in his chair, Gladio chewed another mouthful. Curiosity swept his focus up. The willow, one he’d climbed more times than he could remember, grieved for summer as its leaves lost their more vibrant shade. Autumn was forgiving. It gave them one last shining moment to cling to their bearer as a shroud of golden feathers. A hand swept deep blue over the sky and gave them silver linings as the day faded into the west.

Against a shifting, gilded background, her contrasts were painted by wine and the gentle lighting of the pergola. Her glass left her lips stained and red. The careless thumbs of alcohol had smoothed blush into her cheeks. Soft features weren’t in their hard expression. They were held as soft as themselves while she watched the river in its continuum. He followed her lines, traced them with his eyes and tried to commit them to memory. Her lashes seemed fuller when she glanced at the table.

Then dark eyes met dark eyes.

The depths of hers held stars, he was sure of it. Changing stars that faded and strengthened the longer he looked. Every light strung from the matt of foliage above them was made astral in her gaze. Gladio couldn’t quite understand the words, but he could see them spelled out.

Coughing lightly as he remembered himself, he leant forward to top up her glass. When a faint dribble left the bottle, Gladio scowled.

“Dammit,” he cursed quietly. He stood up from the table and took the bottle with him. “That needs fixin’.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk or something?” she asked, smiling under a frown.

Gladio weaved his head before answering. “Noct’s out for the count and I’m gonna use it. Watching somebody else get drunk’s no fun,” he said, putting her glass nearer the edge of the table. “So join in.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Rena admitted, taking another sip. Gladio chuckled as he walked away and called over his shoulder.

“That’s a first.”

The warm beat of laughter pulled an unstoppable grin onto his face as he slipped into the garden and back to the annex. Gladio ducked through the patio doors and hummed quietly.

The second he stepped towards the kitchen, his tune stopped.

He was smaller. Spice and warmth filled his senses, but it was already slipping away.

Gladio pressed his eyes shut and took a deep draw of the aromatics hanging in the air.

A baby gurgled as someone else hummed. Deep brown eyes turned away from the infant on her hips and creased when they saw him. A soft frown gathered, head shaking at gangly limbs coated in mud and grass. An outstretched hand combed through his hair. It settled and squeezed his shoulder as a kiss to his temple made the room echo with a mock protest. His smaller hand played in hers, tracing the lines of the tattoos on the deep tan of long fingers. Clever as a crow, his mother’s russet eyes took on a familiar glint.

“Shall I tell you a story?”

He held the moment with his breath, before letting it dissipate. When he inhaled again, all the room gave him was chilli, peppers and steak. Everything had been so _real._ Tangible. Only a handful of his recollections had been so vivid. He always tried to cling to them. To go back. As it dropped from the air, pushed down by the heavier force of time, it tugged in his gut like fishhooks. It took a moment for Gladio to numb himself to the familiar weight again. It hadn’t become any lighter over the years. He’d just grown to bear it.

Washing the memory from his system with a deep breath, Gladio reached for the second bottle he’d opened and allowed to breathe. He took a spare, just for luck. The heavy pull warmed again, settling level in him as he regained his balance. He was happy to have memories and stories to tell; it had allowed Iris to learn about the person that sat in the empty chair. Reminiscence with his father had become a form of meditation, once the initial blade of loss had dulled.

Cool evening air was soft, laced with water and birdsong, as she waited. After too long, the settled melody was interrupted by quiet, steady steps. Rena glanced over her shoulder as Gladio appeared, illuminated by the soft glow of the string lights.

“Alright?”

“Yep,” he nodded, pouring yet another glass of wine. Rena returned the favour as he took his seat and pinched his brows together. “What was in the steak rub again?”

She passed him his glass before curling up in the chair and shaking her head. “No idea. Libertus gave it to me, said to try it with garula or dualhorn. Something gamey.”

Gladio’s eyebrow raised as he tasted the sweeter wine. She cocked her head and offered more explanation.

“Crowe dragged me out drinking with them. She ended up pretty busy picking up Tredd’s failed attempts. I got left with Nyx and Libs. It was really good, actually. They’ve got a lot of stuff behind them.”

“Yeah? How’d you find them?” he asked. “I never checked after you tried for the Glaive. Still owe him a round of drinks, I think.”

Rena chewed her answer with a mouthful of wine before washing it down.

“Interesting. Lots of stories. The usual Glaive shenanigans, some crap with _you_ ,” she tilted her head as Gladio cast his gaze to the side, wondering which horror she’d been told of. “and about Galahd. It sounds like it was incredible.”

Sobered before the wine could heat his cheeks, Gladio set the glass on the table and gently swivelled the stem between finger and thumb. Under his black t-shirt, the beads of his necklace were warm and heavy, as familiar as the weight absence had given him. The admission was lodged in his throat, and he cursed himself for being nervous. Still, it came floating out on a husky voice.

“My mother was from Galahd.”

At the end of his statement, he looked up at her through dark lashes. In that moment of silence, every dot of ink in his skin burned. The wide eyes that met his own were lost somewhere. A flicker of shame came through him, only to be burned away by anger. An outsider in high Lucian society was seldom allowed to forget they were such. His mother had held her head high, and only bowed to those deserving. Gladio did the same.

“I’m sorry. Really- _fuck_. I didn’t mean to-.”

“S’okay,” he shook his head, unable to fight the small smile that emerged from the look of mild panic and cringing regret that made her tense her jaw. It was the look the rest of them had worn back when they’d first camped together, and she’d admitted to her own losses. “We’ve all got empty chairs, right?”

Full lips burst into an answer, voice hoarse and soft. “Yeah, but I didn’t need to hit you over the head with it! Shit. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Gladio assured, shaking his head a little at the dark eyes under brows more pinched than he’d ever seen them. He filled her glass again and handed it over. Soft fingertips brushed lightly against his knuckles.

The second bottle was more potent than the first, and soon enough cheeks were flushed and tongues looser. Rena shed her flannel and let the cool air steal away some of the heat from her skin.

Gladio regaled tales of his early years with Nyx and Libertus as mentors. Galahdian culture wasn’t one that could be scrubbed from the soul by a few years away and simply blending in. It was as bold as tattoos; as tightly woven as braids; and as undeniable as the spices and humidity of Galahd itself.

She received them all with starlit eyes and eager ears. Glowing softly as the world darkened around them, she gathered the dove grey blanket around her shoulders and crossed her legs, settling in to listen with intent and curious focus. It had never been so easy to talk through air heavy with the perfume of roses.

Rena watched as whiskey eyes sparked with the lights above them, catching fire whenever he laughed through an unfortunate twist or burning solemnly through the moments in which he owed others. His lips were wine stained as her own were reddened by spice. For a man of few words, Gladio was a raconteur. Expressive brows accentuated the dramatics of his anecdotes. The telling was skilful, captivating and sincere, without losing its humour.

“That is- _why_ would you even think about doing that?”

Gladio shook his head. “No idea. It seemed like a pretty solid plan, at the time. A quick job, switcheroo, in and out, done. Should’ve been easy.”

“And she just walked in?”

“Yep. She was _pissed._ Iggy was her favourite and she was like _this_ far off making him into a freakin’ hat stand,” he grinned, holding up a tiny space between finger and thumb. Gladio sighed shook his head. “It was a damn mess.”

“No shit,” Rena suppressed a laugh.

She topped up the wine glasses and set the third bottle down under the table. Still holding back a laugh at his own youthful foolishness, Gladio washed his mouth out with wine, feeling the fire of it slip down his throat.

“What about you?”

Dark eyes shone as she breathed into a smile.

“A lot of stupid shit. Not so much in the last year, that was mostly sowing wild oats. I’ll try anything twice,” she admitted, taking her own sip of wine.

One of Gladio’s brows shot up. A flush entered his cheeks that didn’t entirely have the wine to blame. He wrenched himself away from drowsier images, only for the fabric to slip from her shoulders and show him skin he craved to learn, with hands or lips, he wouldn’t mind as long as she didn’t. He coughed lightly and swallowed another glass of wine, if only to ground himself.

“Why twice?” he asked, under a charmed frown.

Hidden as expression, the tip of her tongue passed over the sharp point of one of her canines as she thought for a moment, dizzied by wine and good company.

“To make sure the first wasn’t a fluke.”

Gladio fought the smile weakly. The majority of his, somewhat reduced, cognitive efforts were being used to steer his tongue and keep his mind from the gutter or, more precisely, his bed. The shower. The sofa. Kitchen counter. Wall. Dining table. _This_ table…

He shook a heavy head, feeling it bob with the heavy weightlessness of alcohol. The pull of gravity hung on his arm like a child when he reached to refill the glasses, still fighting away from more sanguine images before blood could flow lower in his belly.

A quiet snigger earned his attention.

“What?” he asked, feeling his voice begin to slur through the keen smile.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head as she fought back a wider smirk. “Just… Can’t remember. Must’ve been something impure.”

“Knowing you, it definitely was _.”_

 A warm laugh left her as she pulled forwards, shoulders gathering to brood over her glass. The smooth sound, crackled at the edges by too many nights spent with a bottle of liquor, made Gladio beam.

“My thoughts are my own,” she nodded, trying to rein in a tongue far quicker than her sense with a formal tone. She bit the inside of her lip, barely visibly, when a voice like heavy smoke hoarsely broke the silence.

“This the whole ‘the only thing we own is our souls’ thing?”

Mellow eyes watched, entranced, as she swallowed another mouthful of truth serum.

“Even then, we give them away. Whole, or in parts. We hope others might give us some of theirs. Sometimes we give ours away knowing they won’t. Sometimes receiving just makes you feel guilty because, as much as you feel like you should, you just can’t give some of yours to that person.”

Gladio was quiet.

There it was. A whole truth, if ever he’d heard one. In a few moments, she’d hauled the discussion from the gutter and cast it into the night sky light a net, only to gather her catch of pearlescent stars. She’d shared soft philosophy.

His mind was racing, but the decision was made.

_Just be her friend. Let her steer the ship._

It was a moment of fear. A drowning fear of dying, and yet he refused to block his ears. Gladio tied himself to the mast. He’d stay still and bound. That way he could hear her, even if she wasn’t singing for him. Gladio would keep his mind and mouth under control. He’d train with her. Maintain camaraderie. He’d work alongside her and be grateful for that. He was surrendering control and straying from his reality. Gladio’s path had always been laid out for him. Dragging her along it would be cruel. It was her choice whether or not she followed, but for the meantime, her path was near his and he was happy to walk instead of run.

“I’ll drink to that,” he nodded, leaning forwards to toast with her. The clink of glasses rang through the quietened night.

Both sat back in their chairs, watching as the city lights shimmered on the river like luminous fish. Those same lights, and the kings wall, floated in chiffon bliss under a heavy sky.

Then it began.

Rain. Heavy drops of rain. Barely a drizzle at first before drowning out the traffic. Kept dry by a canopy of lush foliage, their small patch of brightness remained. Gladio caught sight of the free smile she wore and felt his own push at his lips. For the first time in a while, he didn’t find himself discontent that it wasn’t directed at him. He was simply happy to see it. As she watched the rain streak down, hammering against the ground and rinsing them in petrichor, a settled calm smoothed over her skin. Gladio turned to observe the torrential downpour and felt himself cleanse with the city, washed fresh and free of a stain he’d been too stubborn to remove before now.

As rain battered the city, it loosened the late blooms of the climbing rose that crowned the pergola and kept them dry. Both were distracted. Neither saw the petal float down onto the table. It matched the blossom it had come from; soft yellow at the base before fading to peach, and finally a red so deep it seemed to bleed at the curled edge.


	10. Consonance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their first hunt underway, the boys are introduced to the challenges of the outskirts and nature is swift to remind them all that they are no longer playing by their own rules...

“Ugh… Are we there yet?”

“Almost. Where exactly were we to meet her again?” Ignis asked, jade hues flicking to the mirror as the flat plains of Leide passed by; sandy ribbons twisting around the bony outcrops left behind by colder times, all under the clear sky that pressed down on the region.

“Eight klicks north of Hammerhead,” Gladio provided, before turning his phone on its side. “Near this.”

He stretched forward to show Ignis the screen. A landscape as uniform as the rest of Leide presented itself. Jagged rocks, rich with iron, glowed a hot red that threatened to smelt in the setting sun. The air rushing past the car was temperate, warm enough for jackets to be forgone. For now. With no hills to hold the cloud cover, Leide was subject to cold snaps that could crack the rocks strewn over the region.

Ignis quickly tried to memorise the stone profile before turning back to the empty road and continuing. A younger blond, however, was beaming at the picture.

“Look! She used the rule of thirds _and_ the golden hour!” Prompto quickly pointed at the placement of Seyna’s dark figure in the foreground in relation to the rest of the image. He sniffed and puffed out his chest. “So proud.”

“Yeah, I think that _might_ have been good timing,” Noctis chimed in, leaning across the backseat to give Prompto a look of keen challenge.

“What? No way! Taught her everything I know-,”

“So not much?” Noct grinned.

“Hey! I am a very well-rounded member of society, I’ll have you know, _Your Highness.”_

Noctis groaned at the term while a smooth muttering came from the driver.

“ _Member,_ certainly.”

Pale lips gaped at the well-fought smirk, only turning with their wide cornflower eyes as a quiet snort came from the back.

“Okay, that’s it. _I_ am officially _not_ talking to you guys. Nope. Lips are sealed.”

“Nah, wasn’t that,” Gladio held his phone out to Prompto again.

After a brief message from Gladio saying that her previous photograph was ‘not helpful’ she’d sent another. This time, a different angle, a more obvious feature and her hand in frame, flipping the landscape off.

“ _Ooh_ , edgy. I like it.”

Gladio could only frown and shake his head at the blond as he showed the new picture to Ignis. He nodded and refocused on the road, scanning rapidly dulling horizons for the crag she’d indicated. Another quiet buzz came from Gladio’s phone.

“She says she ‘can see you dipshits from here’.”

“That’s what she said!” Prompto gave a wide, open-mouthed smile before spinning in his seat to wink with a click and hold finger guns to the deadpanning pair in the back seat. His grin faded after a moment. “Really? Nothing? Sheesh, I thought we were out here to- _wah!”_

Ignis grabbed a handful of Prompto’s shirt and tugged him back into his seat, before giving him a vicious side glare.

“Seatbelt.”

“Yes, sir,” he pouted, clicking himself back into the seat.

Nodding his head to the song stuck inside it, Prompto let his gaze linger over the passing landscape as it painted itself into view. He leant his arm on the door and resting his chin on the freckled skin. When he glanced left, Ignis was silhouetted by the setting sun. Fine features highlighted by the brushstrokes of a dying day, his emerald hues were illuminated into a summer green behind their glass armour. The slight bump of his nose was revealed, and fine lips painted a golden shade. A miniscule smile quirked at them when he climbed another gear, brought about by the roar, lull, then pleading purr of the car.

“Man, I should’ve brought my camera. This lighting is _in-sane_.”

“Had a feeling you’d say that,” Noctis supplied airily. When Prompto whipped his head around with pale brows already pinched. After an overdramatic sigh and a pointed expectancy from Gladio, he reached down into the footwell and pulled a box from his backpack.

“I know it was yesterday, but happy birthday.”

Mouth in a small ‘o’, Prompto accepted the box and pulled it into his lap. After a few quiet moments interrupted only by the thrum of the engine and the quiet sound of tape being pulled to loosen the paper it held, a sharp gasp gathered their collective attention.

“A _Lokton?!_ Are you serious?!”

Noctis grinned at the utter shock on Prompto’s face.

“You’re twenty, man. That’s a whole two decades. Gotta be worth celebrating. I know you had your eye on it, so I figured ‘why not’?”

The blond sniffed as he fought the watering of crystal hues. Sapphire watched him with steady satisfaction, as Prompto began to thumb through the manual.

“You’re gonna need these.”

Gladio presented a small, black box. A pale, freckled hand accepted it and made Gladio smirk when another, softer gasp came from the seat in front.

“Holy crap, these are-.”

“All charged up and ready to roll.”

“Guys, seriously this is-.”

“The best birthday ever?” Noctis raised an eyebrow, a keen smile quirking at his soft mouth.

“Well, I mean, yeah! Hell yeah! I’m-.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Ignis warned through a smile as rough gravel and dirt crunched underneath the tires.

He followed the dirt track up the small, twisting track until it crested the hill. In the small bowl of a valley below, a circle no wider than a hundred metres, a few skeletal trees had finally given up their paper leaves and stood guard around the glowing blue altar of a haven. The quiet cooing of a prairie bird bounced off the rock walls alongside the soft brush of a breeze through tall, dry grass. A louder rustle came.

 _“Agh!”_ Prompto yelped, throwing himself into the centre of the car as large paws and a larger head appeared at his window. A pink tongue lolled between inane chatter.

“You’re late as fuck.”

The smooth voice from the other side of the car had Noctis leaping towards Gladio with a bleat of surprise. Arms folded and shaking her head, she called Ochre off with a two-toned whistle.

“Hope it wasn’t just my shitty directions.”

“No, we were late leaving the city. The marshal called us in for a brief briefing and- oh gods, I need an ebony- um… _Briefing_ before we left,” Ignis explained, already reaching for the stash in the glovebox.

“Nice of him. Did I miss anything important or is it confidential? Or both?”

“Nah. He just said that if you chased a pack of sabertusks onto us again, or pointed anything more than a spoon at Noct, we’re to arrest you for _real_ this time,” Gladio provided, a thin veneer of sarcasm over his words.

Her eyebrows raised. “I’ll keep it in mind. I could kill him with a spoon, though. _Less_ than a spoon, to be honest.”

“Can we _not_ talk about murdering me when _I’m sitting right here?”_

“Ah, we do it all the time anyway,” Rena dismissed. Her eyes locked on Ignis for a brief moment as he downed the can. “Some more than others.”

A large hand ruffled his raven hair, earning a groan and a matching scowl as he turned to glare at Gladio.

“Figured we’d let you in on it.”

“Knowledge is power, after all,” Ignis admitted, after a refreshed sigh.

He cut the engine and folded himself from the car. The others followed suit, Prompto with his nose still buried in the manual, muttering quietly to himself as he checked diagrams against the camera itself. Hauling camping gear onto their backs, they made towards the soft glow of the haven. Rena took the time to reach out and run her hands along the symbols on the sides of the platform. Far from simply being grooves in the rock, magic flowed through them like water in a glacier. Dipping her fingers in felt like splitting a feathery stream, neither forceful nor soft. It simply flowed around the interruption and gave a pleasant fizzing to her fingertips.

Gladio was putting the final tent pegs into the rock when she struck flint into the ring of stones laid out.

“ _Survival training_ , he said.”

Eyebrow quirked, Gladio turned around from the tent peg and watched as the blue glow of the oracle’s symbols set her in cool tones, all dark features against artificially illuminated skin.

“ _It’ll be fun_ , he said,” she continued, leaning close to blow on the glowing spark, encouraging it to take with every measured breath. “ _Show them how it works_ , he said. _A real experience._ ”

“Hey, it gets cold as hell here. Lowest temperature in the last fifty years was something like minus fifteen,” he nodded, raising his brows as he stood from knocking in the last tent peg.

The single cocked eyebrow told him all he needed to know. Satisfied that her budding inferno was large enough to handle firewood, Rena began to place logs in a square around the centre. Gladio watched with a frown.

“Stacking it for heat. If you’re so worried about your balls freezing off, I suggest you bring the chairs nice and close to this little fucker,” she pointed a stick into the fire, letting the end catch. “and get as much heat as you can, while you can, because _that_ ,” she waved the glowing stick towards the tent. “is gonna do precisely fuck all to keep you warm.”

“Is that right?” he asked, unfolding a chair.

“More or less,” Rena nodded, letting the stick catch again before moving it quickly enough to write with the light and smoke it left in the air.

“It’s Coleman.”

“Means fuck all to me. It’s a tent.”

“A damn good tent. Big tent. Double lined-.”

“Big spaces are harder to heat,” she reasoned, stabbing the stick into the fire and leaving it as Seyna raced from the darkness beyond the haven. Gladio shrugged.

“Harder. Not impossible.”

“Well, then I guess we’ll spend the whole night working hard.”

Gladio tried to keep his mind from the gutter, he really did, but she repeatedly pushed him into it. Frowning across at each other, Rena with her hands on her hips and Gladio with his arms crossed, they were only interrupted when a bundle of sleeping bags and pillows staggered between them.

Prompto, arms stretched around half of the bedding, stumbled all the way to the tent before successfully falling flat on his face.

“Oof!” He waited a moment. After no response, he sighed and called from the tent. “Nobody panic! I’m okay! All these pillows caught my landing and _augh!”_

Noctis, buried under the other half of the bedding, had slipped into camp and tripped over the only part of Prompto still outside the tent; his boots. Once he realised the surface beneath him wasn’t merely sleeping bags and bedrolls, and that it was in fact alive and making faint noises of struggle, he rolled off with a yelp. Thoroughly winded, Prompto wheezed and rubbed at his lower back.

“Dude… why… the hell… are your hips… so damn bony?!” he rasped.

“Hey! I’m not bony, I’ve got muscle.”

“No, you don’t,” Gladio interjected, staying locked on Rena she held her own throughout the standoff.

“Hey!”

“Gladio? Could use some assistance, please.”

He didn’t move from the spot. “Oh yeah? What d’you need?”

“Getting _this_ up _there,_ ” Ignis said simply, pointing a gloved finger to his travel kitchen, and then to the main stone of the haven. “And quickly, if we want to eat soon. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

Amber eyes narrowed in the firelight that set them aflame.

“Be right there,” he called, still refusing to move. Stubbornness was showing the depths of its roots in both of them, planting them in the ground as neither gave in.

“Go on,” she encouraged. Gladio smirked and shook his head.

“Nah, it can wait.”

“It bloody well can’t,” Ignis strained, trying a new angle to conquer the slope up onto the rock. He let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve already got the skewers marinating and if you, yes _you¸_ want a slice of that cake you’re going to give me a hand, or so help me Six, I’ll put laxatives in your breakfast.”

“Shit Iggy, I knew you were anal retentive but that’s a whole new ball game, right there,” she said, completely deadpan. A victorious eyebrow raised when she saw a laugh shake in Gladio’s throat. He worked hard to fight the smile. If nothing else, he was competitive. She was just plain determined.

_“Gladio.”_

The warning tone creaked like thin ice underfoot.

“You’re unbelievable,” he shook his head, turning on his heels and heading towards Ignis.

“Yeah, well. You can polish a turd to a high sheen, but first you need a turd.”

Gladio finally released his laughter as a rough snort, sniffing himself back under control as he joined Ignis and helped him hoist the table. Once set up, the faint _tick tick_ and taking of the gas flame was the starting note to a sizzling symphony.

Prompto and Noctis eventually surfaced from the tent, flushed and warm.

“That’s the bed’s all set,” Prompto informed, sweeping a bright lock back from his face. “Hey, where’d she go?”

“Keeping the dogs busy.”

Noctis chimed in as he took a seat. “You sure she’s not keying the car?”

Ignis’ eyes flicked up from the grilling skewers, the peanut and the bittersweet note of curry powder pluming in steam and fixed on middle distance. He slowly reached around and patted his back pocket, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when the car keys were still there, right where he’d left them.

“ _She_ is always listening.”

The low voice turned Noctis’ eyes into saucers and had Prompto kneeling on his seat, turning frantically to try to find her in the darkness. She emerged on the opposite side of the tent, silent and calm, with the dogs at her side.

“But what would I key?” she asked, arms folded loosely as she considered her options. “Patterns? I can carve a decent chocobo. Maybe, pfff, some random insult? The classic cock and balls? Or…”

She trailed, quietly moving towards Prompto.

“Happy birthday.”

Rena held out a black leather camera bag, still clean of a patina and stiff. Cosmic blue eyes creased as he took the bag with careful hands. He turned back to the group, face flushed a deep pink as he bit a quaking bottom lip.

“Oh my gods, you guys… You-.”

“We should’ve. We did. Deal with it,” Gladio said, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms loosely. His cap was swiftly batted from his head as she passed behind him, only just visible in the dull light of a fire built for warmth, not illumination. He growled a curse as she continued around to help Ignis at his makeshift kitchen.

“And no crying. You’re gonna need to get your fluids up and keep them up. We’re not stopping for a fuckin’ tea party until we’re done tomorrow, alright?” Rena asked, raising her eyebrows as she circled again, this time between the chairs and the fire, passing out bottles of water.

“You especially. You don’t drink enough.”

“I drink plenty!” Noct protested as she handed him three.

“No, you don’t,” Ignis sang.

“Says the guy who’s eighty percent coffee!”

Rena shook her head and continued round, looping back to Ignis to pick up the steaming plates. Lightly charred skewers of chickatrice fillet lay beside a neat bed of rice, studded with a decorative herb, blanketed by a richly spiced curry. The earthy scent of peanut twisted with sweet coconut and the dry heat of chilli, perfuming the night air alongside woodsmoke. Prompto’s eyes widened when his plate was lowered for him to take.

“Your favourite. Or it was, as of last week,” Ignis supplied with a pleased smile, as he handed a plate to Gladio and took a seat at his side. Prompto turned to Rena with a look of realisation.

“That’s why you asked!”

“I wanted to know anyway. _But,_ this seemed like a good excuse to try it,” she explained, finally taking a chair and leaning forwards. Seyna settled in the shadows at her side, honey-toned eyes luminous in the firelight.  

“We tried half a dozen recipes or so, but they all had their flaws. _This,”_ Ignis held his plate up, balancing it on elegant fingers. “is an amalgamation.”

“More like _amazing!_ Scientia Satay. I think we’ve got ourselves a name,” Prompto grinned, tongue already numbing at the heat of the spice blend.

The sharp tingles warmed his throat as smooth coconut salved him. His eyes widened when they met the pair staring at him. Round, dark and set large for dramatic effect, Ochre let out a whine as he repeatedly switched between sitting and lying down. A heavy paw landed on Prompto’s knee as the eyes pleaded the young blond with a skewer, dripping with curry, held halfway to his mouth. Some moment passed between them. A spark. Maybe it was the firelight, or the rapidly cooling evening around a chilli-warmed body, but Prompto heard that dog loud and clear when a line of drool slowly dragged from the dark muzzle.

The second the skewer moved away from his mouth and towards the dog, a voice interrupted and nearly made him throw the plate over himself.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Mouth and eyes still round, he shifted his focus to Rena. She shook her head gently.

“He’s already been fed, and I don’t want to know what this’ll do to him,” she warned.

Prompto retracted the skewer as she called Ochre off. Rena returned his sneeze of disapproval by blowing a raspberry and kept a hand on his head as he sat beside her. Ochre stayed still for the rest of the meal, whining quietly as Ignis collected the plates and loomed behind his kitchen for a moment too long.

“Noct? A hand, please,” he requested.

“You’ve got two.”

_“Now.”_

Noctis groaned as he stood, running a careless hand through hair as dark as the night flooding over them and scratching the back of his neck. He traipsed over to Ignis and listened carefully, numbing the residual heat of the curry from his mouth with gulps of water.

The remaining three sat in a comfortable quiet. The faint shifting of the grass nesting the haven was interrupted by the crackles, spits and pops of logs as they burned a deep orange. The embers were silhouetted by the infernal, glowing heart of the blaze. As the lower wood eventually faded into ashes, Rena stacked more in the same square formation. The fire came up to her knees, and she was cautious enough to sweep her hair out of the way as she arranged the fuel. Curls dark enough to help her blend into the night shone in a bright curtain of bronze and copper. She gathered them back as she took her set before letting them fall.

Woodsmoke, sweetened by honey passed over Gladio as he sent a final text back to Iris. He leant his head back and took a deeper breath, eyes closed to the world as the scents mingled with the warm straw of dry grass and the lingering chili in cooling air. Dark lashes parted. Braziers burned into the smooth, velvet blue. Stars were spattered like paint on silk. The sky was so clear he could see the billowing rift of a galaxy as it tore through space, as though Bahamut himself had sliced the belly of a great obsidian dragon open to spill its glittering blood.

“Off my chair, pupper,” Noctis’ light rasp came under narrowed eyes.

Gladio brought his gaze back down from the heavens. Ochre was curled up on the camping chair, only lifting his head to pant with a smile when he approached. He snorted gently when the dog sat up, plush tail thumping against the chair as Prompto snapped a picture.

A quiet, two-note whistle grabbed his attention, before a brief hand signal summoned him back to Rena’s side. Ochre grumbled as he crossed the camp, sitting to lean against her leg and lay a heavy head on her lap. He begged with his brows, glancing up at her with equal parts adoration and expectation. Rena shook her head and played with his ear, rubbing it in her hand as the dog settled.

Ignis’ even tone smoothed over the quiet sounds of the fire as he stood beside his kitchen. The plate in his hands held a neatly iced cake, topped by a ring of small candles.

“Alright then… All together now. _Happy birthday to you…_ ”

Prompto shrank in on himself, turning beet red as he his between his shoulders, eyes watering with suppressed laughter as the rest sang. Halfway through Ignis’ slow procession to the quivering blond, a loud howl plumed into the night. Seyna had shot to her feet and shifted on them, restlessly joining in. Her sudden involvement was enough to prompt Ochre, who provided a higher, warbling howl of his own. Rena broke off into a snort, hiding her laughter behind the back of her hand as the dogs took the stage.

When Ignis finally stopped in front of the birthday boy, he lowered the plate. Prompto had to fight lungs desperate to laugh. He finally took a deep breath and blew out the candles in one attempt. Ignis supplied the knife and held the plate steady as the younger blond divvied up slices of fresh lemon sponge, surrounded by enough buttercream to combat the tart flavour and decorated with sugar paste feathers in varying shades of yellow.

Still bright red and unable to look any of them in the eye, even after Ignis had handed out plated servings and tucked the rest away in a box, Prompto mustered enough of his buzzing, overdriven nerves and spoke through the quiet compliments to the chef.

“Thanks guys.”

All eyes turned to him, and for the first time, he didn’t feel crushed or pinned by it. He felt like each gaze was a rope that held him up, in one way or another. Some tugged, some kept a steady pull, and others had only just made the tie.

“Really. This… is the best birthday ever.”

He let his own focus move between the rest of them. From the satisfied sapphire he knew best, the jade green holding newfound respect, the fiery brown burning as mellow as the fire, and the darker green as steady as a stone.

“No crying,” she reminded, as soon as the cosmic blues began to well and his lip started to shake. “Fluids.”

“Like he’s gonna lose that much,” Gladio added, turning over his shoulder and peering past Ignis.

He froze when her eyes dropped from his gaze but didn’t entirely leave his face. Rena had flicked down to his lips, homing in on the smear of frosting, before snapping her focus back up.

“You’ve got a little something,” she nodded, briefly gesturing to her mouth before turning back to the fire and taking another sip of water.

Gladio thumbed the icing away before letting himself get lost on a dark horizon, mapped only on where the stars poured over ridges and crags like a wave. It drowned them in the lonesome sounds of night. Distant hoots and closer hisses echoed off the rocks, but none near or low enough to lift the dogs heads and raise their hackles.

Time swept over them, fuelled by the thin trickle of smoke they poured into the sky and the hands that pulled the that pinpricked velvet over them.

It was still pitch black when he opened his eyes. Gladio glanced at his phone and deemed it late enough to get up. His bones wouldn’t move though. He felt as though forcing would break them. Usually warm muscles were stuck to the marrow of him, like a tongue to a frozen lamppost. The simple burn of moving would be bitter.

He lay still, tensing part by part until he’d pushed enough blood through to thaw himself. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to warm his nose in the palm of his hand. Gladio sat up, pulling the hood up over his head again to try and relieve the sharp sting of frigid ears. He unlocked his phone and used the duller brightness of the screen to look about the tent.

Even Ignis had fallen prey to the cold. Buried under a thick sleeping bag, and with Noctis huddled next to him, his breaths were barely audible as they mingled with the soft sounds of the prince’s dreaming. Prompto had splayed out on his back. Up to his ears in a sleeping bag and pinned down by a hot water bottle he’d brought on a whim, he was warmed by Ochre, who was also lying on his back, legs in the air as he curled into the blond’s side.

At the far side of the tent, she was completely still. Lying on her front, one arm was wrapped under her neck with a hand over her nape while the other supported her head. Pale fingers played through the dog’s coat as Seyna slept around her, nose buried under the dark curls. The blanket had gathered at her hips.

Gladio turned back to his phone and shook his head at the unholy hour. His alarm wasn’t for another forty minutes. It wasn’t worth going back to sleep, no matter how much he craved that warm absence.

Folding himself out of his sleeping bag, Gladio crawled towards the flap of the tent, feeling around for the zip. He followed the toothed track to eventually find his target. Quietly unzipping a stretch large enough to squeeze through took an eternity. He was halfway, feeling blindly and measuring purely on hand-eye coordination and the mapping of distance in his own mind, when a faint shuffle came from the opposite side of the tent.

Already cold, he froze, waiting for a sleep-hoarse voice, he wasn’t sure which one, to ask him what the hell he was up to. When nothing more come of it, he continued unzipping the first wall of the tent. The second was quieter and without disturbances. Gladio crept into the dark, zipping the tent closed behind him.

A thin orange flame marked east, stretching across the horizon under the heavy blue of the night sky. Gladio sniffed and caught no scent; they’d all frozen. The symbols glowing under his feet only made it seem colder as he stepped out into the morning. The rising sun was echoed by the still-glowing embers of the night before, flame kept safe within the walls that fed it. He crouched and chipped the hot scales from the logs, gathering a small pile and thawing frozen tinder in his hands. After a few carefully given lungfuls, the fire took and began to chew again.

Gladio crouched and held his hands over the small dancing flames. Smoke passed between his fingers like silk, warming them in comfort. Equally, the sudden heat pared the frozen flesh from his bones swiftly, sharpening him into full consciousness.

The low coo of a bird boomed from a nearby tree. Thick thorns were all that remained of it’s productive summer. Stripped of its decoration, the twisted skeleton was topped by a dense skull of branches so dark they seemed scorched.

As the sun rose higher, the surroundings lost their more sinister edge. Gladio jumped every time the fire spat, clenching his teeth and hoping the others would be able to sleep a little longer. The trees revealed their earthy tones, and the pale sandy feathers of the birds roosting in them. They dotted the branches and fluttered themselves into life again, blooming like flowers. Small and swift, they woke each other with quiet chirps before setting off as a swathe of shadows against the blushing apricot dawn. For all it’s colour, it held little warmth. At least now, he could see his breath pluming in front of him as he thawed alongside everything else.

Then a dull fullness pressed in his lower belly, flipping some primal switch and ushering him to find somewhere more private.

Gladio took one quick glance at the still and silent tent, before deeming it light enough to venture further. As the sky paled, leaving its velvet for azure and violet washes, he walked quietly from the main rock of the haven and down into the grass. It lingered like a frozen sea. What had once been shifting swathes of green had thrown their seeds to the wind and dried, becoming tan husks of their former selves. They glistened sharply. A fine lace of frozen dew gave larges leaves more pattern and gilded the stalks until they shone like fine swords, all biting into the ground under the ornate handles of empty seed heads.

He ducked under a low tree, startling yet another cloud of birds from their rest and turned around. The haven was marked, both by the blue spiral it gave off and the fine smoke twisting as it climbed. He was far enough away to be decent. Up ahead, a broader tree promised a little more privacy, and was the last mark of an outcrop before their haven’s garden dropped off into a lower steppe.

Rubbing his hands together and blowing on them to give them a little warmth, Gladio pulled himself out. Cold air dug its nails in. He hissed at the mild pain before relieving himself against the tree.

Midway, and beginning to feel himself warm up, Gladio’s shoulders loosened with a sigh. Above his own trickle, he barely noticed the approaching sound.

A faint rustle made his head snap to the side. Led by a dark muzzle close to the ground, the mottled coat of Ochre plodded into view. Barely sparing the man a look, the dog headed straight for a nearby rock, sniffing lightly before cocking his leg.

Gladio stared at the dog. He yawned, jaw shaking as it stretched to reveal powerful teeth, and looked up at him, completely unfazed. He felt exposed as the dog with considerable jaws locked eyes with him.

“Mornin’.”

The dog finished and wagged his tail briefly, before heading back through the grass at a livelier pace. Gladio himself wasn’t far off and before long he was zipped up and heading back to camp. He’d barely made it onto the rock when Ignis threw him the bottle of hand sanitizer and left for his own morning foray. The fire crackled louder, gently thawing the frost from the base stone. Other boots were on the move.

She watched the grass move in serpentine waves, disturbed by the racing dogs. The rustles came sharper. The kettle hung over the fire, brooding as the gentle flames of its nest licked heat into the water. Pulled taut by a yawn, she stretched out, joints producing a variety of dull clunks to sharper snaps as muscles pulled them back into alignment. Gladio cracked his knuckles, if only to announce his presence.

“Feeling emasculated or something?” she asked, bending her neck until it popped.

“Nah, just stiff.”

“Over-masculine then?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.

He met her smirk with widened eyes. The rising laugh came as a brief snort when he walked over to her edge of the camp. As he passed through, Prompto had curled up in a chair, quietly eating another thin slice of cake. Gladio flicked at his hair. His head immediately buried in his shoulders as wide cornflower eyes scanned his peripheral.

“Mornin’ Blondie,” he muttered. Prompto returned the sentiment after rushing to swallow his current mouthful of cake, only to take another and whimper at the fresh sweetness.

“What’s the plan?”

Rena turned over her shoulder again, only to shift her gaze back to the changing horizon of the south. With the sun rising on one side, and the last velvet of night waving over the right like a languid fish tail, it was a portrait of twilight and time itself. Passing marked by change.

One arm crossed over her front while the free hand ran the chain of the dog tags between finger and thumb. The world slowly painted her in warmer hues. Fog rose and hung thick in the grass, stirred up as the dogs loped through it. She watched them play and spoke calmly.

“Plan is; breakfast, get fuelled up. Then we set those two to sweep,” she pointed briefly at the rustling foliage. “And see what we find. Either we’ll hit something this morning or in the evening. Chances for the middle of the day are slim. Better to find something later, I don’t think they’re awake enough yet. A good walk should warm them up.”

“And then?”

“Then once we find something, we pick a target and you guys take it down. I can’t teach you it. You need to just _do_ it. It’s an experience thing.”

Gladio nodded. “You got it… What are we going after?”

“Whatever we can find and actually manage,” she glanced at him, meeting his gaze briefly before turning back to the warming landscape. “Hopefully no behemoths this time.”

“That was a fluke,” he smirked.

“Bad timing,” Rena admitted. She tucked the dog tags away before turning towards Gladio. “Coffee?”

“Am I gonna need it?” he frowned.

She just nodded.

Rena took a final lungful of the fresh, cool air and turned back to the camp. After hooking the kettle from the flames and pouring a few mugs, Ignis returned. Stretched and warmed back to his usual composure, he briefly looked about at the camp. Gladio nursed a hot coffee and handed one over, while Rena sipped her own behind the kitchen as she began her preparations for breakfast. Prompto was curled up in a ball on his chair, already fast asleep again in the glowing warmth of the fire. He appeared to be nothing more than a shock of blond hair sticking out of a sleeping bag.

“Morning all.”

“Morning.”

“Mornin’.”

“Mleh…” Prompto bleated, head still buried in his knees as he murmured back to a deeper sleep.

Ignis straightened up and stared at the tent for a moment.

“It’s wishful thinking, isn’t it?” he sighed and turned to Gladio.

The brunet nodded, taking another thick gulp of coffee and tracing circles on the tin mug as he watched the fire in its lazy yellow form. Ignis breathed in the composure and persistence he’d need to begin his day and made towards the tent, ready for the fight of waking Noctis.

He’d barely crouched to pinch the zip when it ripped open and Noct bowled out, racing to the edge of the campfire before he disappeared in a fizzing flash of blue. Once the spark burned out, the light pulsed through the fog as he warped further away.

“The hell got into him?”

A sizzle came from the kitchen as Rena set the first rasher of bacon to the pan. She lifted her focus up and spoke to middle distance.

“Fluids.”

In his un-caffeinated form, it took Ignis a moment to realise. Then he looked at the pile of empty water bottles under Noctis’ chair from the night before.

“Oh, now that’s devious.”

“You said he wouldn’t listen to an alarm. He can’t ignore his bladder,” she offered with a shrug.

Gladio smirked and shook his head as Ignis took a seat beside him. “All those years of throwing water at him.”

“When we should’ve been throwing water _into_ him. I’ll be damned,” Ignis admitted.

After quickly toasting with their coffee mugs, a flash of blue appeared by the tent. Noctis cast the sword back into the armiger and puffed his cheeks out. He glanced briefly around the campsite with alert blue eyes before locking on Rena.

 _“You,”_ he growled, eyes narrowed.

Rena closed her own and nodded in admission. “Me. Your fly’s down, by the way.”

Still fixed in a sharp expression, he reached down and tugged the zip up with stubborn indignation.

“…well tell them _I’m the_ _jelly king!”_

Prompto, thrown into consciousness by a dream, woke to varying frowns. He flinched from his wild expression when Ochre bobbed up to lick the side of his face. Hair flat on one side, splayed on the other and eyes wide with pinned pupils, Prompto was feral before awareness softened him again. He was as pale as the blank white morning surrounding them. After a few moments, he inhaled sharply and jumped from his seat, throwing the sleeping bag around his shoulders and half-drowning in it.

“Need some help? I’ll give you some help. Let me help with that,” he blurted, already shuffling over to the kitchen. Rena gently handed him a steaming mug of coffee before he and his highly flammable makeshift cloak could get anywhere near the grill.

“Ooh,” he squealed softly, cupping the mug in his hands and turning on his heels.

He was about to flop back down into his seat, only to realise it had already been taken. Ochre had a remarkable ability to look pleased, especially with himself. Having curled into a ball on the freshly heated seat, he lifted his head and tilted it endearingly. The sight was enough for Prompto to skip his own chair and take the next.

An abrupt whistle demanded their attention. Rena held up a plate in each hand, steaming into the blank white sky.

“You want breakfast or not?” she asked quietly.

After gathering drowsy senses, the boys took to their feet and collected the first meal of the day. It was heavy enough; toast, bacon, fried eggs, paired with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms. Rena moved quietly about camp between bites, sharpening herself as she went. The dark jeans were shed to reveal her training leggings underneath, ending just below her calves. She shouldered out of the flannel, rolling it around her hand before tucking it into her rucksack.

Then the leather came out. A deep almond brown and supple from years of use, the utility belt was fastened about her waist, each small bag checked, and contents replaced where needed. The newer piece was a mock up of the thigh holster she wore on duty. The leather was fresher, still stiff in its youth. Her hunting knife took pride of place at her leg. At the quiet busyness, the dogs had begun to yelp to each other, chattering amongst themselves as Rena readied her supplies.

As breakfast came to an end and the kitchen was dismantled, they agreed to keep the tent standing. The outer regions all but died for winter. Tourists were non-existent, locals kept to themselves and hunters withdrew and only took bounties that posed immediate threat.

There was no-one around for miles. It was both perfect, and completely horrendous for a training exercise. They’d be forced the learn, but the stakes were far from playthings.

“Alright, you ready?” she stopped, dogs circling loosely as they kept their noses to the ground.

The four stood in front of her, all focused and at differing levels of prepared. They knew how to fight, but did they know how to kill? Their training had been games. Sequences. Dances. All under the watchful eyes and guiding hands of their mentors.

Her own had been a decade of necessity; of refusing to come back emptyhanded. The forest had been a witness, a provider and a predator. Rena had learned the hard way, and she’d learned well.

“Quite, I think.”

“No point waiting around,” Gladio shrugged with crossed arms. He looked to his side. Noctis gave a nod as he locked on her with certain sapphire eyes.

“Ready.”

“Me too. Let’s get this show on the road, huh?” Prompto grinned.

“Alright.”

Rena turned on her heels and sent the dogs away with a quick flick of her hand. They raced off, noses combing the ground for scent. They stopped every now and then, one paw lifted and searched over their shoulders for the following group. She led. Each step pushed cold, sleeping ground behind her as they crossed through thin fog.

The sun rose higher, sweeping away the soft, fresh white of the morning and basking them in enough warmth to have sweat polish their brows. Their shadows shifted. At first spread out in front of them, they hid from the day as it forced them to curl around their casters feet, only to be pushed out behind them as dark wakes. The dogs spread in wider circles, called back by longer whistles when they strayed too far for too long.

“Hey!”

Rena turned her head only for Prompto to appear at her side, having jogged from the back of the group. She put her focus ahead, scanning the approaching horizon and briefly locking on Ochre and Seyna.

“Yep?”

“Got any rules? Like _do’s_ or _don’ts_ or anything like that? What are we working with?” the blond sang, a smile spreading cautiously over his face.

“Don’t kill it unless you’re gonna eat it. Try not to die and-.”

Her head snapped towards an incessant bark for the third time that day. Ochre was almost sitting, restless on his haunches as he let out a chain of barks. Seyna sprinted to him and stopped dead at his side. The loud bay was confirmation. Both were silenced by a looping whistle.

A keenness fixed in Rena’s expression. She turned to Prompto over her shoulder as she began to run towards the dogs.

“And shoot to kill. Just- _be careful_.”

As they approached the dogs, Rena gathered them at her side and padded forwards through the open. The lowly sounds of dualhorns rumbled through the ground. The others followed close, eyes passing over the herd as she carefully followed a thin trail between bushes until they were concealed behind a rock. Early evening smeared red into the crags and ridges, heating the iron in the rocks until the air itself was bitter with unspilled metal.

Gladio raised an eyebrow. “From here?”

“Fuck no, better angle round _there_ and it means we can hem one in,” she said quietly, pointing to a slope.

It gathered into a swathe of larger rocks, all close together in the shadow of the tooth-like formation above. Longwythe stood proud and silhouetted by the sinking sun. The herd grazed quietly, thick, pale hides set into a sandier tone.

“Alright guys. You picked one?”

Various affirmatives were given as hands gestured to their chosen quarry. All different individuals.

“Oh, Titan give me strength…” she whispered, letting her head thud against the rock for a moment. Rena took a moment to consider each option.

“It’s between Gladio and Ignis. Tell me why.”

Her sharp focus pinned Noctis. He gaped lightly and glanced at the beasts when she gestured again.

“They’re… bigger?”

“They’re bulls. Breeding season just ended, they’ve done what they needed to do,” she informed. Noctis’ mouth opened before he pressed his lips together and nodded.

“Rough gig,” Prompto added, wide eyes flicking over every muscular twitch the dualhorns gave in their evening grazing.

“Not really. They’ll die happy, at least,” she cocked her head. Her gaze continuously twitched between the two chosen targets, occasionally sweeping the wider herd in case of any drastic changes. “Fair warning, they move faster with empty balls.”

A snort came from behind her. “How’d you figure that one out?”

“I’ll give you a hint. One week earlier and we’d have been sniffed out and charged off by now. Dualhorns in rut are not fun.”

“Dual- _horny_?” Prompto asked, wiggling his eyebrows with a nervous laugh. Rena breathed a laugh and gathered her hair into a bun. She shook her head and focused on the duo again.

“Alright, which one are we getting? And _why?”_

“The one on the left. He’s smaller, more manageable. We’ll have a higher chance of success.”

“You’re not wrong, but at the same time, you are,” she turned to Ignis. A light frown crossed his features.

“The other one. He’s the alpha so he hasn’t just been sparring. He’ll defend the harem too. Lot of running around. Judging by the scarring,” she peered around the side of the rock, locking onto the large blue rip of an old wound gouged into his shoulder. “He was last year’s alpha too. He’ll have been defending that for weeks before the cows went into heat.”

“He’s tired.”

Rena glanced at Gladio with a nod. When she turned away, her sharpness tugged at him. It was as if she’d stabbed him, and then withdrawn the knife. Bleeding out was his realisation. He saw it and it was impressive. More than her brutality in sparring, more than when she’d walked amongst wolves and fought a bear, even more than standing amongst crystal company as a pearl draped in mercury.

There was a wild focus to her, something that pulsed through every fibre. Every dark strand of hair clinging to a sweat dampened neck rooted her into the ground. Each breath was an exchange with the world; a bargain for what she was about to give in an attempt to take. Her contrasts were balance itself. The bloodied horror of survival and the softness it made way for.

“Alright. Gladio loop round to that rock there. _Don’t move_ until you hear a whistle. Iggy, Noctis, you two are gonna stay here. Same again with the whistle but yours’ll be two notes. Use the lance. If he tries to move past, scare him back in or don’t let him out. Prom, go with Gladio. I’ll be _there_ , that way I can watch the timing. Got it?”

“You got it.”

“Yep.”

“Of course.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Cut that shit out. Right, stay quiet and low. If I can see you, they-.”

A loud snort from the herd interrupted as older calves tussled with blunt, undersized horns, only to be interrupted by a mother.

Rena cocked her head and continued. “Can see you. These things get pissed and fast. Aim for his back legs. Some of us’ll distract him, somebody else take the tendons out. He won’t be able to move. _Watch the horns._ Those things hit you, you’re fucked.”

After one more glance over the rock, Rena gave the nod. Crouched to the ground, Gladio straightened up partially to move.

“Lower.”

“I can’t get lower.”

“ _Lower,”_ she insisted, waiting for him to be a few inches below the top of the grass.

The dark earthen brown locked on her. She glanced back towards the herd as their target called lowly, shaking his bearded head and throwing the menacing shadow of his horns over the underbelly of Longwythe. Green came back to him, deep and vibrant in her element.

“Alright, go,” she whispered.

The first pair shuffled away. Prompto led as he quietly opened up the dry grass for a silent Gladio to follow in his small wake. Driven on by the presence behind him, the blond shouldered his way to the rock. Their hands met the warm stone as they crouched behind it. Prompto pressed his back to the outcrop and tried to steady his breathing as he summoned the pistols. Darker eyes moved to him before focusing on the herd and picking out their target again.

Back at the initial rock, Ignis quietly summoned a sword and handed it to her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome… Out of curiosity, what will you be waiting for?” he asked, fixing a cerebral frown on Rena.

“Space. If we hit them when they’re together, the cows’ll probably form a ring around the calves, bulls’ll charge around the outside. These things are faster than they look.”

“Right.”

“Alright, I’m gonna head. You guys good?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Noct replied. The engine blade was put into his hand in a muted burst. Ignis gave her a solid nod.

Rena crept through the grass. Each louder rustle made her stop and check the herd to her side. The only other sound was the padding of the dogs behind her. She was halfway to a quiet spot when their soft noises were interrupted by a low growl. Seyna’s warning was cut by a sharp hiss.

“Ah, fuck…” she breathed.

A scaled tail slipped across the ground, lingering across her path as it led to sharp, sandy coils. She turned the sword in her hand, shifting it so that the blade was in front of her. The snake flinched and hissed louder as the steel hovered closer. It was enough to distract it as she pulled the hunting knife from it’s holster. Fangs glistened, flashing at the metal. She felt the herd shift in the ground. Her eyes couldn’t leave the snake.

Rena pinned it to the ground by the neck, squeezing it between rough dirt and the flat of the sword. The angry hissing stopped after her knife crunched into its skull. The tail whipped angrily when she pulled the brighter steel out and continued to twitch even after she severed the head.

“Don’t think so, you little fucker.”

She squeezed the snake, pulling a closed fist along rough scales from the tail to the bleeding neck. The blood dribbled, then poured, then faded to a drop. It sat proud and thick on the dry ground. Rena coiled it around her hand before tucking it into a small bag on her belt. She shook the head lightly, peeking up to check the differences in the herd. The majority had shifted, leaving their chosen bull, a cow and a calf in the recess beneath the peak. Rena milked the last of the blood and tucked it into another bag before wiping the clear fluid spilling from the hole in the top of its head off on her thigh.

Once at a tree, she signalled the dogs to lie down and stay. Both were quiet. Noses kept busy by scent and ears pricked up for every sound as they pressed their heads to the ground, completely hidden.

The grass threatened to crack with every touch. Her hand swept out in front of her, shifting the cover as she stayed low, legs curled underneath her.

A sudden snort made her freeze.

Motionless, she breathed carefully and kept her head down, peering into her peripheral to check for any sudden movements.

The cow was facing off with the bull. Horns clacked loudly, threatening to splinter like a tree falling onto another. Teeth gritted, Rena stayed still. As a bellow left the cow, she continued to push at the male. He shook his bearded head with a roar. It echoed off the crag above and shook the ground when he stamped. A higher sound bounced back at him.

_Use the cover._

Rena continued, eyes on the pair as they argued. She timed longer steps and riskier pushes at the grass to their snorts and grunts. Blind memory led her to the rock she’d chosen.

Once stone brushed against her shoulder, she emptied burning lungs of the staled air that should’ve been exhaled a minute earlier. Rena peeked around the side of the rock, eyes flicking to the argument, then to the rest of the herd as they moved off, gently plodding to the open for their night pastures.

Flattened against the rock, Prompto shook violently at Gladio’s side. The thick hide of a cow armoured solid muscle as she walked no more than a foot away from their hiding place. When his eyes widened in horror, Gladio stretched the back of his arm across the blond’s chest, pressing him still against the stone.

His ears were pounding. Each breath did nothing to hide the heart that started to run. His palms itched for a pommel. He knew better. A flash that large would give them away and then… Gods knew what then.

The pale blue haunch stopped. Both pairs of wide eyes flicked to their side. Heavy snorts left the beast as it swept scents from the grass with its horns. Prompto had gone still. He’d stopped breathing. The sniffing sped up. Each exhale brushed against his leg. She lifted her head, breath making broad ribs swell under her armour as the grass shifted in the draw of her lungs.

She bellowed.

The silence held them all still.

Gladio slipped his hand into the armiger, feeling the waters as his sword called from the depths.

Another call made Prompto flatten against the rock, tensed as solid as his shelter. The ground shook, tiny stones jumping between Gladio’s fingers as he pressed them against the dry grit. Rapid shuffling came towards them.

The cow was joined by another, and a calf, before continuing off through the grass. At the silence, Gladio let go of the blond, only for him to slump down to the ground, eyes wide as he began to fill his lungs again. Once Prompto shook his head rapidly and perked back up, they turned to peek around either side of the rock.

The bull was still there, chewing a final mouthful. He was thirty feet away. Nose filled with the straw scent of dry grass, Gladio steadied his breathing and waited. When frost-pale hindquarters turned, he summoned the sword and screwed his eyes shut, prying them open to see the beast had barely lifted his head. He returned to his grazing, ripping the rough foliage up in loud tears.

Seconds drew into minutes. Unable to move the sword without revealing himself or rustling the grass, Gladio stayed low. He glanced at the other rocks. Ignis, lance in hand, was flat against his hiding spot and peering over his shoulder at the target. They locked eyes. Gladio’s frown was met by a minimal shrug.

He had to straighten slightly, peering over the grass, to see the outcrop she’d selected. Gladio squinted, waiting for any twitch of foliage or changing shadows.

A whistle rang clear. Gladio jumped before the second note could play.

“Oh fuck…”

In the quick flash of weaponry in dying sunlight, Noctis warped and clung overhead, distracting the beast with a loud whistle. It spun blindly on the spot.

Ignis buried his lance in its hindquarters to distract it again. His eyes widened as gargantuan horns jutted towards him. The sharp edges of the layers threatened him with every jerk, all over a gutturally bellowing jaw. He was about to strike again, sights locked on its miniscule eyes.

A shot echoed off the walls, bringing the sound crashing down on them. Ignis leapt backwards as the dualhorn reared. Spooked until it twitched, the beast turned, alerted to Prompto’s location when the second shot grazed its temple. It charged.

Noctis warped to the rock, grabbed Prompto by the collar and sprinted away. The dualhorn rammed into the stone with enough force to dislodge it from the ground, revealing darker, damp earth. Stalled, but far from dizzy, it shoved at the rock again.

The dark stretch of a broadsword swung, whipping up the air as it bit into the creature’s hind leg. A wailing roar erupted as it spun, flattening Gladio against a nearby stone and shaking its head to let the sharp sheaths of the lower horns do their work. He held a shout behind gritted teeth.

Noctis warped in again, finishing the strike Gladio had taken at the bloodied tendon. It snapped. One leg reduced to a limp and lame mess, the clawed hoof dragged as it spun away, seeking out its latest attacker. He paled.

The ripping of another bullet through the air, and the clamour so loud it threatened to crack the ridge looming over them like a tooth waiting to snap down and crush them, put a hole in the beast’s hind leg, just above the thickened guarding the intact tendon.

The bull turned and charged for Prompto again. Ducking behind a rock wasn’t an option. He waited until he couldn’t bear to any longer and leapt aside. The dualhorn, still racing despite the limp, skidded to a clumsy halt with a defeated bleat and turned, facing them once again. The greyish blue of the horns were painted red, some old from the rutting fights, some new and a wet scarlet.

Rena swept in from the outskirts, stabbing her sword through its leg before pushing. She used the leverage of bone against tendon and forced the blade to chew it apart.

He entered his final frenzy with a desperate cry, spinning and tripping on the spot as they closed in carefully. Rena distracted with a stab behind the foreleg, just under the shoulder. The pouring crimson left a mark for Ignis, who buried his lance into the beast. The roaring turned hoarse and died as it fell to the ground, muscles twitching and wound steaming with blood.

The trampled grass was soaked.

Shaking.

Rena lifted her focus as a weight dropped in her gut, one that set her counterbalances and made feet light enough to run and keep running.

A tremor made her legs burn again. A pair of the older cows, large and without calves were thundering in from the other side of the rock. They snorted hotly, shaking their heads as they drew closer.

The second bull charged from the open, splintered horn sharp and menacing as he raced closer. He wasn’t aiming directly for them though. The scent of blood is strong, and even dualhorns can follow it. He’d located the threat. Now all he had to do was eliminate it.

Gladio, pale and teeth gritted into silence, was held up against the stone he’d stained with his own blood. He was clinging to steadiness. Every fresh pulse of warm liquid pouring from the mauled leg was an unnerving comfort. The blood in him shook as the second bull came at him. He raised his head and shouldered the sword.

She barely thought. She saw and she did, but it was all muted. Razor sharp hearing was dulled. Her vision blurred. Rena ran and hard.

The bull was closing in. Another three strides and it’d spear him to the rock.

She pushed harder, forcing the world behind her with every step.

It roared.

Bright ashes burned at her side. It was _right there._ She gritted her teeth and took it in her hand. Rena tore it from the armiger, ripping between ether and existence in a blinding flash of dark crystals and fizzing light.

The bull hit the shield with a thunderous rumble, knocking it back against her as she held it up with both arms and forced herself to stay standing. Rock met her heels. The beast maintained his force, unable to push her any further as blood soaked against her skin.

Rena jutted the shield up and ducked down, ripping her knife through the bearded throat with the loud gristle of steel against tissue.

The second bull thumped to the ground after a few drunken steps, only to twitch where it fell. Rena cast the shield back into the armiger and glanced at the others. They were fending off the last of the herd as they loped out into the open plain. When Ignis dropped his lance into a fizz of crystals, Rena’s shoulders loosened. As she caught her breath, she turned around.

He was paling, tanned skin turned ashen as thick velvet metal laced every breath. Large pupils in chestnut rings half-focused on her.

“Down.”

Gladio shook his head and limped forwards. She gripped his forearms and pulled, speaking through gritted teeth.

_“Down.”_

Grimacing at the sharp tug when he crouched, a brief push to his shoulder put him on the ground. Gladio guarded the leg. Every pulse through the wound screamed wrongness. He was already trying to convince himself that it wasn’t pain; it was just there. Eyes screwed shut, Gladio forced himself to breathe through his nose and become grounded in the rich scent of blood dampening the flattened grass.

“Ah shit,” she cursed, assessing the leg with sharp eyes as it pulled with pained twitches, each stabbing at him. Footsteps raced towards them.

“Prompto’s going…to need…” Ignis wheezed, clutching at his own throbbing ribs. His eyes widened at the clammy mess of an old friend. “Gladio…”

“Not looking so peachy,”

Brown eyes widened at her. “What? Like I’m gonna lose it?”

“If I don’t get _that_ out, you might,” she said simply, glaring at him from underneath a deep frown. Gladio made the mistake of looking.

A shard of the bull’s horn had lodged itself in his thigh, hard and blue as the edges soaked with blood. He could feel it biting. All the effort he’d put in to reduce the pain to a dull ache, to have it being merely the threat of a maw about his limb, had been dashed by witnessing it sink into him.

A rough bark echoed against the peak. Rena stood up straight and scanned the horizon. Seyna was stock still as Ochre circled her closely, both manically unleashing chained bays at an unseen threat. The dark, bony crest of a sabertusk cut through the grass as the dogs raised their hackles, each warning throwing drool from sharp teeth.

“We need to move-.”

“He can’t-,”

“I know,” she nodded, eyes wide as she kept them fixed on the horizon. Jaw clenched at rapidly narrowing options, Rena shook her head before locking on Ignis. “We need the car.”

Jade hues fixed as the mind behind them tore through possibilities.

“Right.”

Ignis sprinted to the other two as a loud whistle cut the air, calling the dogs back. She crouched low and slipped an arm around Gladio’s back, legs braced to pull him to his feet.

“On three, alright?”

He nodded, pulling his good leg underneath him, ready to push against the ground.

“One… Two… _Three.”_

 _“Fuck,”_ he ground out.

She shifted her shoulder to a better position, bringing half of his weight onto her. “Hurts like a bitch?”

“You could say that,” he growled.

Her frantic eyes flicked to a blue flash as it reappeared further, and further away, working its way towards the horizon like footsteps splashing in icy water. A savage growl left Ochre when one of the pack strayed too close. They left the bloodied crag behind, the pool interrupted by fallen bulls. Both gritted their teeth and fell silent as the ripping of flesh from bone echoed through the high chirping of the sabertusks.

A lithe figure, painted in yellow tones by the sinking sun, crouched beside Prompto. They could hear the frantic breathing as they approached. None went further than his throat. It was interrupted by a retch, then the faint thud of remnants landing on the grass. Ignis hand patted his back solidly, muttering quiet assurances and keeping an eye on the horizon. The grass was tall enough to hide them when they crouched, and whatever else hid alongside.

The dogs set themselves to guard, making tight circles around the rock as Rena set him down. She skimmed over the grass, catching on any unsteady movements before dropping to her haunches and pulling off the utility belt. He grimaced, teeth bared, when the leather was tightened around his upper thigh. The growl came from the dogs.

A bony muzzle poked through the cover. Coated in sweat and chilling fast, Prompto was propped up against the rock when he saw it. As Ignis burst another potion over his arm, pale eyes revealed themselves; blind and yet looking right at him. He grabbed Ignis’ wrist, mouth opened and ready to scream.

The quick snarls of the dogs broke out, both bursting at the sabertusk with flashing jaws. The trio tumbled through the brush in a flurry of claws, teeth and vicious rasps.

Then it went quiet. At the sudden silence, Rena lifted her head and whistled out two weak notes. Both dogs circled back briefly, jaws dripping with scarlet. They walked close enough to brush against her, confirming their presence and hers, before returning to their tight patrol.

She turned back to her current concern. Blood was still being forced from the wound, pooling under her knees as she fought to stem the flow. Her training echoed inside her head, fighting other thoughts for her attention.

_Talk to the patient._

Rena’s eyes flicked up to meet a dulling brown.

“Alright?”

He nodded weakly, pushing a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah.”

Blunt fingertips were digging into the ground, clawing at it, as she knelt on the juncture between thigh and hip. Every few moments, the muscles in his neck would cord, choking down the protests of pain. He was still watching her when she locked on his eyes.

“Yeah right,” she said, tone thick with sarcasm.

Something was shaking the ground. Tearing it. Rena had barely looked up when the car, svelte and black, swung into view. Noctis tumbled from the driver’s seat and crawled towards them.

“Alright, time to go.”

She snapped her fingers by his temple as dark lashes began to sink. He shook himself back to full consciousness. Rena saw the grimace, ready to scream, before he held it back. Nodding, he was pulled to his feet and half-dragged to the car. She folded him in, quickly fastening the seatbelt before scooping Noctis up and piling him in. He was freezing, cooling faster than the night, and clammy. Bright scarlet stained from his nose. It slipped into the parted, twitching lips as pinned pupils met her from dull eyes.

Ignis withheld a groan as a growl when he dropped behind the wheel, immediately releasing the handbrake and taking off towards the road.

“Iggy, potions?”

He reached aside and opened the glovebox, but both hands were required at the wheel when a sabertusk flashed in the headlights. She leant forwards and grabbed the glowing vials. The engine shook the entire car as it clawed back towards camp. Rena blindly handed one to Gladio and cracked another over Prompto as he drifted in and out of consciousness. The pendulum swung between alarming stillness to manic, shaking cognition. Rena found his racing pulse and felt it slow as the sweet, dry cloud of the potions filled the car before being dragged away by the wind. She burst one over Ignis before he could protest. He was favouring his right side and guarding the left of his torso.

“Do we have any-?”

Ignis was already shaking his head when the sharp puff of broken glass came from her left.

The pale teal washed through his skin, flooding under the pale flesh as it billowed up his neck like smoke. He tore a deep breath when the weak light of the potion reached his jaw. The tanned hand fell back into his own lap.

Rena glared at him. Eyes closed and hauling panted breaths, Gladio’s brows were loosening.

“Iggy.”

“Almost there,” he rasped, still winded from an earlier impact.

He drew up the short slope and stopped, inches from toppling a chair. Prompto stood on shaky legs and gripped the side of the car as Ignis rounded to him. Held up by a hooked arm around his waist, the blond was witness to Gladio when Rena almost pulled the door off. Deep scarlet was turning purple as it flooded lazily around the arcane shard of horn embedded in his thigh.

He turned away, wrestling from Ignis support, and tasted the sour burn of his own vomit, only to let it splatter over the stone.

“Iggy, hand?”

“Of course.”

After scooping Noctis out of the way, he shoved Gladio from the car until Rena stood straight beneath him. He could barely stand, on either leg. She dragged him towards the tent as Noct and Ignis made their slow procession with a woozy Prompto in tow.

Sapphire eyes widened at the limp shield. A soft curse left him.

“Don’t let Prom see it again, it’ll only throw Noct.”

“I’ll keep them out here,” Ignis confirmed, hauling the zips of the tent open.

“Alright,” she nodded, trying not to drop him as he lurched forwards. Rena kicked the bedrolls aside and lowered him to the ground. She looked up at fine features as Ignis’ mouth fell open. “You alright?”

It took him a moment to answer. “Yes. Of course.”

“Take these,” Rena said steadily, holding up the first aid box. “I don’t know what the fuck happened to Noct, but they seem to work.”

“Warping,” he nodded weakly, taking the box and slipping out of the tent.

Rena turned back to the mess in front of her. He was still bleeding heavily. She pressed her knee over the juncture again and swiftly arranged her supplies. What little she’d fished from the box would be enough. It had to be.

_Stop._

Head shaking, she untucked the knot of her hand wraps and tore it apart. Rena moved quickly, but still too slow to keep up with her own mind.

_Stop._

There was a new frown setting on her. He hadn’t seen it before. Focused, stern, but confused. Uncertain. Her eyes were twitching between what she could see and what she thought. Too many thoughts. They all clouded in front of her.

_Stop._

She did. Everything. Her hands, her eyes, her lungs. Rena stopped until it was nothing but a pulse pounding in her head. She set herself to that beat. Bare hands stretched in front of her, pulling taut before they settled back and stopped shaking.

The gloves were cold.

Rena kept pressure on the wound. His pants were shredded, some fabric tucked into the wound and soaked with the blood. Scissors were quick to open along the seam and loosen the material enough to give her a clearer view. The sheared horn bit into muscles that twitched and tensed, trying to force it out with every heartbeat. Old blood had crusted black as fresher stains washed around the shard.

Rena glanced at him. Jaw clenched. Brows furrowed as he poured with sweat. His fists balled around sleeping bags until they were white knuckled and shaking.

She reached aside for a vial, but instead met glass broken by her own haste and the fizzing smoke coming from the puddle of potion currently steaming away.

“Iggy, potion?”

“We’ve none left!”

Gladio’s eyes flew open.

“Look, you’re gonna have to be one tough son of a bitch for a little while,” she said, keeping her voice clear enough for him to focus on. “Can you do that for me?”

His eyes kept sweeping right. All the colours, the tent, her, were being shoved smooth like sand by a wave, each and every time he tried to focus. Panting, he gave his answer.

“Yeah.”

“Alright, good. Because this is gonna fuckin’ suck.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” he breathed, clutching at the filled fabric in his hands.

It felt worse. Pain was throbbing around the horn, only amplified by the deadening leg. Rena was focused and sharp. Unable to maintain her angle of stemming blood flow to his leg while having a clear view of the shard, she tightened the belt around his thigh. The growl never left his throat. She eased her knee away, watching to see if bleeding sped up again. Satisfied by a few moments of steady flow, she gingerly grasped fragment.

She pulled, steady and hard. It had barely moved when a strangled groan slipped through his teeth. His leg jerked away, only for him to grimace about the pain. Rena’s hands had whipped away the moment he flinched. Harsh breaths hissed through his teeth.

He let the leg back down, bracing himself for another attempt. She managed to get a firmer grip on it before his head threw back, knocking against the padded floor mat of the tent with a thud as a harsh growl burned in his throat.

“Gladio, please don’t move,” she shook her head, waiting on him putting the leg back down. Eyes screwed shut, he nodded. “Alright? I know it hurts like fuck but please don’t move.”

“Okay,” left him, weakly flying out on his forced breaths.

She pinned him, her shin holding him down above the knee. When she took another grip of the stone, she kept pulling. The rough, wet sound echoed through the tent, like a knife being pulled from sandy earth. As she kept up her force, Gladio strangled a shout in his throat and thrashed his other leg against the ground.

“Stop moving.”

His fist pounded, clenched so tight his own nails were pressing through the fabric. The leg she fought was shaking, desperately trying to pull away. His hip jerked, trying to throw her off as he stopped breathing. A hand braced against his thigh as the other kept tension on the horn.

“Stop moving.”

The warning came again, lower and shaking like a fire. He willed himself to do it. Gladio tried to force every fibre to fall still and limp, to let go of the fragment as the muscle tensed and tried to swallow it. The sudden jolt of his own leg pushed the stone against her palm and drove it deeper. The burning presence in his own flesh tore a shout from breathless lungs.

The weight on his leg lifted. Free to move, he winced as instinct tugged him to curl the leg closer and guard it. There was a hand on his chest, sticky and warm with blood. Another in his hair, holding his head still. Gladio forced his eyes open, as much as pain screwed them shut under knitted brows. She was looking at him. There was something wrong. It was all there. Her expression was a muted match of his own; pained and frantic.

“Re-.”

She shook her head.

“Sorry.”

He heard her knee whack into his temple. As the ringing dulled, he tried to weave some of the dulling from his head. She hit him again, the same spot and just as blindingly hard.

Brown eyes searched the tent in loose patterns before falling shut.

Rena sat back on her heels and took her first decent breath in the last five minutes. When she looked down again, he was completely still, pale and faded as oblivion took him.

“I’m sorry.”

There were flowers. Heady and bright against a duller sky. There was no hunger. No fatigue. But there was pain. Small, quiet pain tucking itself into a pocket and accepting its place as he accepted its deceptive weight. It was a quiet, lying thing. Dishonest and yet honourable. Its stubbornness had been stolen by something far more permanent. That tiny dragon had lain in a river and breathed fire, only to half-drown and have its gift stolen. Cold and thin, it had crawled from his shoulder, finished with its whispers, and curled up in his pocket to waste away.

But there were flowers. Spice. He could hear the river, even though it wasn’t the thief. The air was cool, but his body was warm. Throat bathed in acrid ambrosia. Cathartic. Yet the glass was smooth in his hand. He was laughing. Someone was laughing.

Gently burning. Not bright, not hot, but enough. It was a fire for the sake of fire. Not for carnal consumption, nor a temporary illumination. It didn’t burn with liquor flames. It was rising from the water itself. He was under it.

Gladio filled his lungs, fighting away the throb in his head before opening his eyes. His vision sparked. There were quiet sounds; a fire crackling, the fizzing of his own pain in the back of his mind and scrubbing. Soaked scrubbing.

He meant to turn his head, but let it fall to the side instead, chasing the sound with half-open eyes. The scent met him before the sight. Deep, velvety and salty, it clouded in a mouth so dry it was burningly sour. Then he saw red. One hand washed the other of the garnet glove stretching halfway up her forearm. A ball of linen soaked the bloodied water from her skin as she squeezed it out. She made a routine glance to the side and took a double take.

“Hey,” she said quietly, the smoky note passing over him as barely audible. Rena finished drying her hands before shifting on her knees and settling at his side.

“Hey,” he croaked, so hoarse it took a lungful to give one tiny sound.

“C’mon, move. Let me see them,” Rena said, gingerly nudging his cheek with her knuckle until he faced the ceiling of the tent. The slow tide of a blinding light made him protest weakly as she checked his pupils. He blinked away the burn as she nodded to herself and murmured an affirmative.

She turned the flashlight off and placed the phone at her side. Gladio was still searching the tent, head fallen to the side again as his pulse twitched in his neck. Drowsy and mellow, he watched her with softer eyes than he usually allowed. She was busy, glancing at his leg every so often, then back to his face to check consciousness.

“Where were you?” she asked, taking up his wrist.

Held between two fingers and her thumb, she tilted his palm with her ring and pinkie fingers to expose his pulse. Once she’d found it, she glanced up to make sure he was still awake. Gladio was, and he was watching her between slow, exhausted blinks. She prompted him again.

“It sounded nice.”

“I was…” he rasped, pausing to swallow the salt from a dry mouth. “Home. The garden.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gladio nodded, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. “Was… drinking wine and…” He closed his eyes to frown, dragging the memory from the depths of his mind. “and flowers. There were flowers. Roses?”

“Roses?” she asked. Gladio put all his energy into opening his eyes again. There was no raised eyebrow, no quick smirk. She was frowning gently, watching him as he nodded, coal lashes falling shut again.

“Roses…”

As he faded out again, his hand shifted in her loosening grip. He’d shifted it, the calloused palm resting against a softer rendition as the resting curve of his fingers cupped the edge of her hand.

There were no dreams this time.

As he left sleep behind, the sandpaper lodged inside his temple grated with every breath. It was pitch black behind closed eyes. He cautioned cracking one open. The deep navy lining of the tent met him, gently illuminated by a small yellow lamp on the opposite side. He could smell woodsmoke and blood. Something dark shifted at his side.

“Are you going to stay awake this time?”

Each hushed, smooth note washed over him like the echo of strings through wood. He swallowed through a parched mouth and nodded, trying to find her in his peripheral.

“Good,” she said, tone giving nothing away. A sheared piece of horn the size the hand holding it appeared above him, mostly clean of blood. “Look what I found.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Yep. Thought you might want to keep it, or should I give it to Seyna as a chew toy?”

“Mine,” he grumbled, reaching up to take it. It was smooth, and viciously sharp at the reddened edges. Still warm.

Rena shifted again, scooting forward to sit on her heels and watch him. Eyes able to focus now, instead of relying on familiar blurs, Gladio kept his gaze slow and soft. He met her eyes and saw that cautious curiosity he’d come to know well, but it was usually directed at others. A sudden pang of his headache made him wince.

She’d just started to turn her attention to the limited medical supplies when a soft gravel poured into the tent.

“You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me.”

He opened his eyes from the strain and met her first. Rena breathed a laugh.

“You tried hard enough yourself,” she said. The quiet words settled on him, curling on his chest like a leaden cat. “What the fuck were you trying to do?”

“I dunno. Did it work?” he asked, quirking a brow. An incredulous frown hinted on her expression.

“Fuck no!” she whispered.

His hand was warm. Only one of them. He focused on the sensation of scarred knuckles under his own hardened fingertips.

_Oh, it worked alright. Not the way you planned, but if the shoe fits…_

Her expression changed, loosening back to her usual deadpan and then a little further. The darkness under her eyes was shaded deeper by the dim light. Soft features were too tired to keep up their hard formation. Gladio tried to read words he didn’t understand. He was halfway to guessing one when a dark stain on her temple caught his eye. The skin was split and beginning to bruise, a dark dribble of blood staining her face as it showed its path in a near-black track. It had gathered and run along the scar on her cheek.

The bright flash of a shield pulsed in his subconscious.

“Need to teach you how to handle a shield.”

“Is that a joke?” she asked, raising her eyebrows in neutral expectation. Gladio frowned and waded through a fogged mind. After a moment too long, a smile spread across his chapped lips as he moved with gentle beats of laughter.

“Fuck, I didn’t think I’d hit you that hard,” she said quietly, brows falling back into a frown.

Her hand shifted and pinned his pulse again. It was stronger than it had been, still faster than she’d have liked, but it was there. It was speeding up.

“Do you wanna drink wine with me again? Or something?”

She froze. All numbers left her head. The count was abandoned. His heartbeat was replaced by her own as it hammered against her temples. Rena was perfectly still and showed him nothing. When his hand moved in her grip, she withdrew her own as if he’d bite.

Gladio had no hope of reading now. She was hiding in plain sight. Each and every thought was a leaf and only she could tell them apart and know their finer details. There was hardness in her expression again. The head of curls shook. Gladio felt the ground at his back harden and refuse to swallow him up.

“You’re concussed as hell and you’ve lost a lot of blood-.”

“If I wasn’t… Would you?”

His eyes met her, soft and dark as rain-fresh earth. He was exhausted, she could see it. The healthy tan had faded to an ashen hue as dark features on his bold lines made him look thin, weak even. He was waiting. She was chasing down a hundred reasons, gathering them as she sprinted to the back of her mind. Her ear pulled at a loud snap of a log on the fire.

“I’m gonna go get the boys. They’ll want to see you.”

She came to her feet, still crouched and made for the door of the tent. Her fingertips met the zip.

“Rena.”

Eyes closed, she stilled. The thoughts were turning in the wind, leaves brushed to reveal the undersides that all read _run._

“Please.”

It sounded as though he’d swallowed wire, as if his throat were bleeding. Gods knew he didn’t have much more blood to give.

Gladio did feel as though he were bleeding, but it wasn’t his throat. No. She’d had a hand around his throat the moment she kept taken hers away. He was cut, and it wasn’t wire. It was a knife. One he’d handed to her. This was the unsheathing. The moment. She had the power to rip him apart, in all respects.

When she turned over her shoulder, he still couldn’t read her. Rena took a slow breath and Gladio could see her gathering the words on her tongue. Of all her curses, this would be the sharpest.

“Think about it. Or… you know what? Just forget I said anything. I’m sorry.”

Her hand closed around the zip, but someone else tugged. The sour scent had been hidden behind as much mint as he could manage as Prompto ducked into the tent. He grinned crookedly at Gladio, who nodded back. Cosmic eyes scanned the space. The blood had been mopped up, though its scent clung to the air in a velvet curtain. Supplies were tidied away, and everything looked as it should’ve. Except for Gladio.

“Good to see you, big guy. Thanks for all that stuff earlier,” Prompto nodded in earnest as Rena stepped out. A huge yawn pulled at the tiny figure, stretching him until he was a caricature. “I’m gonna, yeah, I think I’ll hit the sack. Been one hell of a day.”

“Likewise, Blondie,” he spoke to the ceiling of the tent as Prompto shuffled over to his sleeping bag and squirmed in. Despite his own burning with a fever, he didn’t feel it. “Likewise.”

Gladio closed his eyes and let his aching mind wander. No matter how far he went, he couldn’t outrun her. Not there.

He was running again. The air was warm but a chill set in his bones. The ground was shaking, more and more the closer it got. The broadsword slipped along the horn and chipped one of the lower sheaths. The bull just kept coming. It was forcing towards him, so close his own sword threatened to cut him. He tried to hold it back. He felt small. Both hands were on the pommel. He couldn’t pull one away to summon the shield. The sword burst away, and the shield hid in the depths. He couldn’t reach it in time. The smooth edge of the horn crushed him against the wall until that gouged chip…

Burning from his own dream, Gladio dragged air into his lungs and blinked into the blinding abyss. He’d felt it tear into him all over again. Gladio released his grip on the sleeping back and slipped a hand down. The warm skin was still tingling, sparking with every moment of contact. A rougher surface met his fingertips. Soft and textured, the bandage was a grounding relief. He kept his touches light. The expanse of fresh fabric was dry and no warmer than his skin. He hadn’t reopened the wound.

He was still shaking the flashbacks when something rustled to his right. His vision adjusted slowly, but just enough to make out the finer shadows. He turned his head. Ignis’ features were softened in sleep, facing him with the gentle frown he wore to bed. The coal mess of Noct’s hair was just beyond Ignis’ shoulder, some of it feathering over his neck. Prompto was next, arm slung over the steady, mottle side of Ochre as it rose and fell in sleepy rhythm. The blond duo were spilling out of his sleeping bag, all gangly limbs and open mouths. Drool fell from one, while another let a pink tongue loose.

Then came Rena. Sleeping on her belly again, one hand guarded her nape while the other stayed on Seyna’s dark coat. A faint glimmer shone at Gladio. The head of the dog had lifted, and she was staring at him. Pale fingers slipped through her fur as she stood, giving the mess of dark curls a nudging lick before stalking across the tent. Large paws and stiff limbs were careful to avoid the various head and wrists in her way, sniffing each lightly as she passed. She stood at his side, head level with his.

_Just growl already._

Seyna licked at his temple before squeezing in beside him. He winced lightly as the dog burrowed into the bag, turned around and wormed her way up. The heavy, solid mass slumped against him, paws tucked underneath her. The forceful nudge under his arm prompted him to lift it up and let her past. Gladio stayed perfectly still. She was warm and moved slowly, resting her head on his arm as tired eyes and shifting ears moved to every distant threat. He let his hand down. Thick, plush and as long as his fingers, it was easy to get lost in Seyna’s pelt. The steady tide of her breathing and a heartbeat hammering louder than his own was enough to coax Gladio to rest, even if he couldn’t sleep.


	11. Reconsideration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the group take on a second hunt, the consequences of the first drive Gladio and Rena apart, forcing the effects on everyone...

His lungs were burning. Legs soaked and chilled to the marrow even as a clawing speed fought to keep him warm. Contradictions were everywhere. The trees towered over him, sharp limbs lined with sharper needles.

Prompto had always hated needles.

A thick swallow made him lose his rhythm. He tripped. The heel of his palm crashed into a moss-coated rock. It did little to dull the pain. Eyes frantic, he didn’t dare look back. They were ahead, possibly far, and would be hidden well. He could run straight past if he didn’t spot them first.

Prompto ran further into the trees, pushing himself off those in his way to keep up a demented pace. Thick grass kept lush by the astral heat of the meteor as it bled into the ground for miles, as it had for millennia, slowed him down with every dew-soaked clump. The thick fog came up to his chest. He was skimming the surface of it, drinking the spruce-laced air as he dodged trees and any boulders large enough to see.

_Where are they?_

A pounding heartbeat, the sharp tug of his breaths and light feet kept swift over the freezing ground filled his ears. Prompto’s eyes were sharp, but almost too much so. A twitch on his fog-laden horizon made him stop dead. He could see the stripes of a bony crest, he was sure.

He could do this. The fizz of his guns underneath the mist flashed far through the blank white. The woods were thickening. He didn’t stop. He didn’t dare. Not when a guttural rasp carried through still, freezing air.

A soft whistle came from his left. One note. Short and low.

It came again.

Prompto pushed against a tree, forcing himself to follow the sound. A large boulder loomed in the mist, cloaked in moss and frozen dew. He raced towards it. Whoever it was, they’d be at the other side.

His head snapped to a growl behind him. There was no pause in his deafening heartbeat. Prompto shoved against the trees, throwing himself forward as rapid breaths came through gritted teeth. It was ten feet in front of him. The voretooth was behind. He raced, burning legs half frozen as he cut through the fog and threw his feet into the next stride on soaked grass.

He slipped.

Prompto went down without a sound, the impact jarring through the heels of his hands and his backside. He froze for a moment. Then scrambled on the spot. New to the world under the thick, low clouds, violet eyes swept around him, peeking under the soft white. There were tree trunks. Twisted roots. Clumps of grass. The dark tear of his misplaced boot and the gouge it had made in spongy earth. The pale stone of the rock was dripping as the thick morning frost was sloughed off and joined the fog.

“You took your time,” Noctis sighed, holding a crooked grin as he reached out a hand. He pulled Prompto forwards, back to a tightly curled ball with his legs folded underneath him.

“Nature calls, buddy. Nature calls.”

“She try the water thing on you?”

“Nah. Mighta had one too many cans of ebony at breakfast,” he cocked his head, puffing a silvery lock out of his eyes. Noctis scoffed quietly into a laugh.

“ _Breakfast,_ ” he mused. “You mean when she dragged us out the tent, threw some food at us and started walking? She’s even more of a hardass than last time.”

Prompto began to creep around the edge of the boulder, sticking close as Noct followed silently. The world under the fog was small and close. Bitterly cold and soaking. Both were drenched, even their hair had fallen limp. With barely enough time to throw clothes on their backs, there had been no chance for the usual comforts of the morning. Hair was left natural and falling from the chaotic style sleep had given it. They’d started the day with full bladders, half-empty stomachs and drooping heads. She’d flushed them from the tent with silent glares and brief, blunt words as if _they_ were the quarry.

“Just doesn’t want anyone getting hurt is all. She beat herself up pretty bad about last time. Barely talked for a week.”

“I don’t blame her. Couldn’t have gone much worse,” Noct said, rocking back and forth at Prompto’s side. The shallow world was interrupted by the low, full bellied boulders as they slept amongst fog.

“It coulda,” Prompto whispered, breath stolen into the freezing mist as pinned pupils stared out at the field.

“Yeah, I guess,” he replied, sapphire eyes flicking across the fog at the ghosts of movement. “How about that one on the left? You take that, I’ll go right. Spread out.”

The rocks were twenty feet away and barely visible. Prompto glanced at his own and planned a route, mapping the sticks and thicker clumps of grass that could give him away with one misplaced limb.

“Yup. Ready?”

“Ready… S’go.”

They split apart, half-crawling under the fog. The shift in body weight forced them to use their hands as balance while their legs pushed behind them. Once at the first rock, Prompto glanced to the side. He could see clear for five feet. Then the hazy fading began. Noct’s all-black gear was faded to a dull grey with the distance and only revealed him when he moved. He bought his leg up, knee beside his shoulder as he moved quietly through the cover.

He whistled softly. Prompto returned with the same note as both shifted again, finding the next rock before pausing. They scoured the narrowed realm.

A lonelier tune cut through the fog. Two notes. The second higher. Low rustling as wet grass slapped against legs and its brethren came from his left. The sound slowed and fell silent again. It was replaced by deeper, faster shifting up ahead. Prompto peeked out around the side of his rock, pistol in his hands. The grotesquely carved paws landed heavy in the grass. Large claws threw up clumps of earth and clacked against rocks when they found them. A long, grey tongue slipped between crooked teeth in a long, narrow jaw.

Prompto counted. He could see four. The hand of caution brushed the hairs on his nape the wrong way, sending a shiver down between already tensed shoulder blades. He jolted flush to the rock when another loped into view. Seeing was believing, but not here. He glanced to his right.

Noctis flicked his focus away from the pack for a moment. Sapphire and cosmos were bright and wide over cheeks too pale, the cold had slapped colour back into them. Noctis’ light hand appeared. Stark against his black cargo pants, he broke from the loose first and pointed two fingers at the voretooths. Prompto confirmed by doing the same, before spreading his hand to its full span. Signal taken, Noctis mimicked and stayed ready, eyes locked on the snaffling jaws and striped hides. Both waited. They steadied their breaths and readied lungs with slow, full tides.

A sharp whistle, so short it barely happened, echoed from their left. The voretooths lifted their heads, already snarling. Another came from straight ahead. One more, forward and right. Noctis gave his.

The mechanical whirr of the revolver’s barrel played low in the grass. Prompto took aim. As his breathing faded, sharp eyes followed the barrel and drew a determined line, as sure as an architects pencil, right to the juncture between the chest and neck of a voretooth. He could almost see its pulse twitching there as it growled deeply into the fog, sharp claws ticking restlessly on the ground in an insect-like rhythm. Prompto cocked the gun, feeling it settle back in his hand, tense and ready.

He gave his own whistle and fired.

Red sprayed over another of the pack as the wounded gurgled a snarl and took a few final steps. The shot had echoed thickly through the fog, bouncing back against the trees encircling them and amongst the rocks they used to hide. The pack swarmed around their fallen member, sniffing at the twitching body as it bled out and whooping to each other as they spread.

A quiet grunt threw a lance into the side of a chest. It turned, immediately trying to bite and pull the weapon. A pair prowled towards the sound as one remained, sniffing at the injured. Prompto barely heard the rifle cock before the side of the guard’s head burst into red. The shot echoed back off the trees, coursing through the fog like an undertow. The remaining three gathered in the middle. Nobody moved.

Some silent command sent quicker rustles whipping through the grass. The dark shape raced past the voretooths, close enough to get their attention and far enough away to avoid its consequences. They’d just lunged at her when Ochre sprinted behind them. The dogs played their games. Hackles raised and heads low, they growled and snapped at gangly creatures more than twice their size, drawing them away from the panting heap of another pinned by the lance.

Ochre came close, menacing and teasing the beast as Seyna distracted the other. It was inches from his haunch when he bolted away. The mottled coat rippled as it tore through deep grass and led his pursuant. The voretooth charged and followed him into deeper fog.

Its snarls were interrupted by a loud, guttural bark, then a choked whine. The cartilage of its throat squeaked and popped as something ripped through it.

The one voretooth standing had turned at the dying call. Seyna was called off with two notes and disappeared back into the mist. It circled the other. Blood stained through the striped coat. They were surrounded, and they knew it. The one strong creature left reared its head and began a low howl that spread with the fog, echoing within the clearing and deeper into the woods.

The dark, broad stroke of a broadsword silenced it. Gladio hauled his blade from the back of its neck, leaving the head to flop, held on by a few inches of intact flesh rendered useless. The final member of the pack, back end limp and shaking, forced itself to stand on the remaining forelegs as it snarled at Gladio. The two were shrouded in mist that held down the thicker scent of blood soaking the grass beneath.

Ignis burst into view. He hauled the lance from its hindquarters and spun, bracing his shoulders with the staff before stabbing it into the voretooth’s chest. All the air left it one a high whine. He wrenched it to twist, cracking bone and tearing at flesh as blood stained the silvery white of its winter coat. It slumped against the ground.

They all waited a moment, perfectly still and ready to see if the howling call had been answered. The fog swirled around them as they stood, one by one, and revealed themselves to the others. No baying returned from the woods. A looping whistle sent the dogs to circle as Rena ducked beneath the fog again.

“Alright! Now _that_ was more like it!” Prompto grinned shakily, shoving Noct’s shoulder in play. The prince nodded and cast his sword back into the armiger.

“Yup. Still not worth getting up early for, though.”

Prompto dropped his guns in a fizz of blue and faced the blank white sky smoothed over them. “Oh, come on! That went exactly to plan, right-? Rena?”

“Give me a minute,” she called quietly, still hiding in the mist.

The four gathered in the centre. Ignis puffed his wispy, wheaten fringe out of his eyes and adjusted his glasses, jade eyes flicked to each of them in search of injury. They were all soaked with sweat and fog; chilled pale but warmed by the golden swirl of adrenaline as it swept under their skin and weighed heavy in their bellies. Ochre swept close, nudging at Prompto’s hand to have his ear massaged.

“Who’s a good boy? Were you the good boy? I think you were! You were, Ochie-Dokie!”

Prompto riled him up, rubbing at the dog’s cheeks as he bounced on his front legs. Ochre bowed deeply and smacked at the ground with one of his paws, tail swishing and inviting him to play. The blond stayed still for a moment, then jolted forwards. Ochre circled and continually danced for attention at his side. He was indulged.

“Right, that was good,” she confirmed, emerging as pale as the fog.

A thoughtful frown hung over focused eyes as Rena glanced at Ignis, Noct and then breathed into a quick smile at Prompto. Ochre’s paws were on his shoulders as his large, pink tongue smeared over a freckled cheek. She ducked down again, half hidden by the fog as she worked on the voretooth at their feet.

“Prompto, nice work catching up-,”

“A-thank you very much, I try,” he held a hand to his chest in mock grandeur before fussing over the dog again. “Who’s the good boy? The big fluffy boy? Yes, you!”

“That first shot was good too. Noctis?”

He fought a shiver by crossing his arms and shook his head at the playful pair by his side. “Yep?”

“Very quiet. I barely heard you, so well done on that. Nice job with the sneaking around too. It’s not easy when we’re this low.”

“And cold,” he replied, puffing out his cheeks. A flat look from Ignis was enough to make him loosen his hunching. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well. You did good. Little more aggressive next time though, alright? Patience is useful, but you don’t want to miss your window.”

“Got it,” he nodded, returning to rubbing warmth into his arms.

“Iggy?”

“Should’ve gone for the kill straight away?”

“Not exactly. You were good to pin him, saved us some time, but with these fuckers you might want to mind your aim. You nearly wrecked this,” she explained. Rena stood again, bloodied to the wrists and held up a small, steaming bag. It was the size of a kidney, dark green and dripping with blood.

His tone was one of curious marvel. “Is that the venom gland?”

“It is,” she said, eyeing the fleshy sac as it pulsed weakly. Ignis stepped closer and looked quizzically at the organ as she tied a knot in the thin tube spiralling from the top of it. “They’re used in potions. Mild sedative once they’re refined, but the impurities when it’s like this make it stronger. If you’re up shit creek, one of these’ll help. Be careful with them.”

“Extraordinary…” Ignis remarked, watching as she squeezed the gland. Tiny pale circles showed through the translucent lining as she moved them with her thumb.

“Disgusting.” Prompto said frankly.

“Yeah, what he said,” Noctis chimed in, pointing at Prompto with his thumb as they both cringed at the fresh organ. Rena tucked it into her belt and ducked down beneath the fog to cut another from the fresh corpse.

“Gladio?”

“Yep?”

“Good work.”

“Thanks.”

Ignis glared at him after the flat exchange.

Training had been silent ever since the last trip. Rena had been quiet. She’d barely said a word, and this was the most she’d spoken to any of them in a fortnight. Once again, she’d met them in the outskirts at a haven. After disappearing for most of the evening, she’d returned after they’d all gone to sleep, only to haul them from the tent a few hours later and throw them back into the bitter cold of a Duscaean winter morning.

Thus, here they were. In the middle of the woods, miles from a road, and having completed their first successful hunt.

The mood was not one of complete success.

“You guys coming, or what?” she called from the edge of the clearing. Seyna was chattering at her side, watching as Rena wrapped yet another gland in grass and tucked it away into one of the bags on her belt.

“Yep.”

“Be right there!”

“We’re on our way!” Ignis called, jogging behind the younger boys as they met her at the edge. Gladio followed quietly.

She was washing blood from her arms again, this time with the navy rag of her back pocket. Rena release the bun and let her hair fall loose. It fell thick and dark over a cool nape. Shrouded in fog to her waist, she led them from through the woods in silence.

The dogs forked ahead, sniffing and looking back every few minutes to check their distance and adjusting appropriately. They kept to a heavy trot. They existed in the world under the fog, heads bowed to see the trees and boulders ahead, and the legs thirty feet behind.

The pack they led were held in a middle world between a false, ghostly sky that passed cold and wet between their fingertips, and a larger, more sincere version held up by tall spruce in their dark winter foliage. The pace was easy enough over the gentler hills. Nothing like the racing drive they’d taken on venturing into the woods. They hadn’t come far. If anything, the pack had already been too close for comfort; howling through the chilling night from the forest near the haven.

Prompto moved most. Partially to avoid the cold, and partially to line up shots. The Lokton was still new to him, but he’d learned it fast. He’d always had a knack. Noctis was usually at his side, until Prompto would stray from the group, either catching the rising sun as it spun gold threads in the silk fog, or diving below to the world of small, soaked plants of a dozen shades and textures. He was always somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Noctis kept steady in the centre, the point around which they all moved and yet he was moved by them. Mainly Rena, who led the way as the dogs were told to find home. The fog washed already diluted scents weaker, and the cold did little to ripen them. Ignis kept to the middle of the group as well, wavering between front and back as he held his small conversations with the others. Gladio brought up the rear in a rarely interrupted silence.

They were heading south, back to the haven. Prompto was first to announce it, having caught the blue spire in one of his landscapes. It cut thin and sharp, twisting gently into the blank white sky. They were back at the tent within minutes. It was barely mid-morning.

While Noct and Prompto headed straight for the tent, and the comfort of sleeping bags they could soon warm, Ignis took his place at the kitchen and started up the grill. The fire was briefly stoked and fed as they all gathered around it. Rena ducked into the tent silently. Prompto kept half an eye on all of them as the camp finally woke in a steadier rhythm, as if they were repeating the morning. His camera was kept busy by the atmospherics of thick fog and the magic cold put into his companions.

Noctis looked as though he’d been slapped; cheeks ruddy as he huddled underneath all the clothes and blankets he’d brought along. He huffed at the lack of reception and resigned himself to rearranging his team in Kings Knight.

Gladio was quiet. He kept his eyes moving, never settling for too long on anything. He sniffed, the end of his nose red as the chilled air paled him to deeper contrasts. His eyes were still that warm brown, one that had initially burned Prompto with every scathing glare. Now it was familiar, and he knew how to play with the fire. He made his way towards the tent. Head bowed, and shoulders gathered, he stopped abruptly. Prompto glanced up at the sudden halt and watched carefully.

The sight made him feel small.

Gladio stepped aside, eyes on the ground as she slipped out of the tent, shouldering into the flannel and locked on the fire. Rena didn’t wait around. She gathered the dogs with a whistle and set off into the thick grass. She was making a beeline for the small frozen lake nearby, and in silence. She was halfway there and still moving with the tireless pace she always set, when Prompto turned back to camp. The glow of the fire was beginning to reach him and make him warm. He watched as amber eyes stayed on the ground, only closing before he stepped into the tent.

Prompto breathed a sigh, saw it form in front of him, and turned over his shoulder. Rena was at the shore, kicking her heel into the ice until it broke before crouching down to better wash the venom glands. She tied each to a long stick so that they hung in the frigid water; kept fresh for later. The dogs were cautious, skittering along the ice as they tried to walk. He felt cold just looking at it, so turned back to the soft blaze and snuggled into his seat with the sleeping bag.

The softer sight of a less formal Ignis was new to Prompto. He’d only ever seen him in his highly composed state. It felt as though he were being let in on a secret; that marble was carved in the likeness of clay, and that coffee would always cool eventually. He was as fine and sharp as ever, lithe and graceful in everything he did. Bared hands worked quickly as he fired up the grill. A stifled yawn never left his throat. Prompto forced back a smile at the surprisingly human display. He held the viewfinder to his eye, lined up a shot, and saw jade eyes widen at middle distance.

Prompto moved the camera away to see Ignis in his entirety, crouched behind the table and eyes level with the upper surface. His hand was patting lightly around the lower platform, held up by the table’s folding legs. The tapping of his fingertips slowly became audible. A frown pulled at fine brows. Ignis gripped the edge of the table with his other hand and glared at the empty space below. He was being watched; he could feel it. Sharp eyes hit Prompto with their cutting focus. The blond could see it. The unspoken question that also came as a threat.

_Where?_

He shook his head a little, just enough for it to be visible. Ignis took a deep breath before he stood, clenched fist resting on the countertop and staring at the fire like a man possessed. There was a dull pulsing at his temples. One that quickly put a twitch in his eye. The impending migraine would be horrific. Something akin to having his head stamped on. He would know, that had happened once. The high grating of metal against metal almost made him wince. He shifted his glare to the cause of the sound; Gladio zipping the tent shut again.

He pulled a hoodie over his chest and worked it down to his hips until he let his hands fall heavy in the pocket. He took one step away from the tent and glanced quickly around camp. The threat from green eyes wasn’t the one he was expecting and from a different shade. Gladio froze and took in the scene.

He turned on his heels and reopened the tent. After some rustling and the faint swish of sleeping bags against bedrolls, Gladio stepped out. He walked halfway to Ignis before throwing him the keys. The advisor caught them in one, crushing grip. A strange, low sound left Ignis, something akin to a growl, as he turned the grill off and began to head up the track of half-frozen mud that led to the car.

“Let’s go,” Gladio said plainly as he tucked his phone into his pocket.

He kept his hands in the fabric and looked expectantly at the two of them. He looked better than he had after the last hunt. The dark circles under his eyes had almost faded, and he wasn’t so gaunt. The first few hours of sickly sweating had given way to one lasting feeling that had clung to him since then, wrapping around his neck with all the soft grace of a chain. He was tired. The entire trip he’d looked as though he would fall asleep any minute, but only to jolt himself awake and refuse the blissful loss of consciousness.

“We could just stay here. I mean, do _we_ need anything?” Noctis asked, turning to Prompto with a quizzed frown. The blond gathered his thoughts before shaking his floppy mess of hair.

“I don’t _think_ so. We could guard the camp! Wait for you guys to get back, keep the fire going, that sort of stuff. Seems like a… pretty solid… plan… to… me.”

Prompto trailed off quietly, until his voice was barely more than a whisper above the crackle of the fire. Gladio was held upright by nothing more than his bones, and a stubborn refusal to fall.

“We’re going. That means you too.”

Noctis was careful when he spoke. “…Why?”

“How many of us do you think it’ll take to hold him back if they don’t have any coffee?”

Both were still for a moment, locked on the blank expression held by strong lines and swarthy features. Noctis took a sharp inhale and sprang up from his seat.

“Solid argument. You win. Let’s go.”

“Yep, right there with ya, buddy.”

The two shuffled, drowning under open sleeping bags, to the tent and traded them for hoodies and jackets. When Prompto stepped back out, hissing at the cold, a loud, sharp sound made him jolt.

Gladio’s fingers were in his mouth as the whistle sliced the foggy quiet, aimed directly at the lake. The curtain of curls lengthened as she turned her head. He walked away and left for the car. Prompto, still frowning at the back of the shield’s head as he marched up the slope, hands in his pocket, turned back to Rena. She stood and twisted the rag in her hands. It was wrung dry, pouring over the ice before waning to a drip.

When she met them at the car, Gladio was hiding behind the opened trunk as he idly rearranged the few contents. Ignis pulled gloves onto his shaking hands. He earned a softly raised eyebrow, and a smoothly voiced concern that was less offensive to the sandpaper currently lining the inside of his skull.

“You sure you’re alright to drive?”

“I’m fine. Simply tired. Not drunk.”

Ignis folded into the driver’s seat and winced at the closing of the door. He breathed a sigh before closing his eyes and letting his hands find the keys in the ignition.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. I don’t blame you,” she said quietly, sliding into the backseat alongside Prompto.

Gladio shut the trunk with the softest click he could manage and rounded to the other side. Pinned between two solid, warm bodies that were trying their damnedest to stay as far away as possible from each other, Prompto puffed his cheeks out in a sigh. They may have been closed into the car and insulated weakly from the outside, but it was a different kind of cold. Prompto couldn’t sit still. The fraying edges of ropes cut between them were tickling his skin, threatening to make him squirm. He chanced a brief glance to his left as Ignis drew onto the road.

The only part of her that moved was her eyes. They temporarily fixed on trees, boulders, signs as they were all put behind them. Rena kept one hand hidden at the back of her neck as it twisted a lock of hair at the base and pulled. Prompto felt himself staring and moved his focus to the centre of the car as Ignis climbed a gear.

This time he looked right.

Gladio was watching the woods go by too, as they gave way to plains and the wider, fog covered green of Duscae. The book in the door pocket was untouched. He’d read on this trip, Prompto had seen it, but he never got more than a few pages before turning back with a sigh and trying again until he gave up. Gladio had started giving up.

Prompto could understand why it had shaken him so much. He’d seen the gory mess of his leg, heard the muffled scream from the tent, the sickening crack of bone against bone, and been the first to see the two of them after she’d torn it out and sewn him back up. There was no doubt, in his mind, that Rena had been rocked by it too. The blood was on her hands and on her watch. She’d seen more of it that any of them and had to explain herself to the Marshal and Captain when they’d gotten back.

Ignis slowed as they passed an outpost. The bright red paint on the sign was peeling, but it was enough. Closed. He clenched his jaw and kept driving.

At the fourth outpost, Ignis barely bothered to slow down. That was, until he noticed the lack of red sign. Cautious hope rose in him. His headache abated somewhat and became heavier at the same time. There was a pressing need pinching the base of his skull. One that needed addressed. He threw the car into a parking space, hopped out and peered at the door.

Open.

“Alright, let’s give this a try,” he said, closing the car door as the others folded out. Each closing thud of the doors itched at his mind, like a spoon scraping the inside of his skull.

They filed into the small shop, immediately surrounded by the muted warmth emanating from a glowing orange heater behind the counter. They spread out as Ignis immediately homed in on their canned drinks section, the flickering minifridge and then section of shelving holding various dried goods. Nothing. No beautiful black, white and red siren to soothe and tempt him from the mast of decaffeination. He muttered dangerously enough for Noctis to follow close at his heels when he made for the shop counter.

“Absolutely bugger all… Now let’s see.”

The dozing assistant was curled up in a thick shearling jacket, chin on his chest as he slept in the silent shop. Prompto took long strides as he followed Ignis’ more forceful pace, eyes wandering over the bare shelves and cobwebs. Gloved knuckles knocked gently on the counter. The clerk half-rose. Ignis knocked again, hard enough for the hollow sound to bounce off the empty walls.

One of his eyes split open. Upon spotting Ignis, he blinked, coughed and forced himself to stand.

“Well, hey there. What can I do for ya?”

“Sorry to wake you sir, but you wouldn’t happen to have any coffee? At all? Any kind?” Ignis asked, a gentle grace put into his voice out of sheer professional habit, even as it cracked and let his pained need hint.

The man sniffed and frowned for a moment. “There ain’t any on the shelf?”

Noctis shook his head quickly, before Ignis could answer in what would likely be a more pointed tone. The man pointed his thumb over his shoulder.

“I’ll check the back for ya, but no promises. Still waiting on that delivery truck, y’know what I mean?” he laughed. It was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and a statement that ended with a rough cough when he turned and stepped away to the stockroom.

Ignis tapped on the counter lightly before meshing his fingers in an attempt to keep them from shaking. He let out a deep breath and tried to distract himself with the various details of the shop.  The wooden shelves had been painted cream years before, maybe decades, and were peeling away as time scratched them. The stilted buttons of the cash register were so faded, only a familiar hand would know which numbers were which. Ignis felt as tired and worn as this place looked.

“What did he mean?”

Ignis closed his eyes and opened them to sapphire hues under the beginnings of a frown. When he spoke, it was hushed and careful, as he regularly glanced at the stockroom door.

“Winters in the outer regions are… not well spoken of, in the reports. Most couriers will refuse to deliver. It’s mainly fear of sudden changes in the weather and becoming stranded, or that the animals are more desperate. Drivers would rather stay at home, with their families, than venture outwith the city walls.”

“But we’re barely out of Leide!” Noctis protested in a harsh whisper. Ignis nodded.

“I know. Lestallum often acts as the winter surrogate. Cleigne is one of the more productive regions, after all. Even then, the majority of the harvests are directed towards the city and traded from there. It’s no wonder really. Look around you. Most of this is older than all of us…”

Ignis continued in a low voice. It wasn’t that Noctis hadn’t paid attention, or that Ignis had hidden this from him. Insomnia reaped its benefits. Monthly records of supplies sent in from the regions, everything from the electricity processed at the plant in Lestallum, the heavy grain harvests of Cleigne’s fields and the game and fowl of its mountains, Duscae’s fruit and vegetable crop, Leide’s more limited offerings of metals and salt. Since the fall of Cavaugh, all other regions worked to supply seafood as well. Galahd had long since given up communications with the mainland. The supply boats were poached by pirates, and aid rarely came when called for.

The reports received from the outer regions had been ones of riots and unrest. Protests in Lestallum. Talk of Cleigne becoming an independent state once the debt owed for EXENERIS was paid off and they could control trade of their energy. The tension had risen so greatly, forces were deployed more than twenty years before, stationed simply as the flexing of an iron fist. A warning to keep the peace.

Over the years, the reports became calloused. Riots were reported in numbers and dates. No locations, casualties, or even deaths, were mentioned. They were simply assumed.

Prompto crept away, drawn through the shop by curiosity. It really was like stepping back in time. He angled his camera to a cobweb, testing the zoom.

“Okay, let’s see what you can do,” he whispered, disappearing amongst shelves that came up to his chest. He put the viewfinder to his eye and turned his lens to home in on Ignis and Noct. Prompto spoke in a hushed voice, mimicking Ignis’ smoother accent as he spied.

“Here, in the borders of Cleigne, we’ve located a rare and dangerous beast… The Ignisaurus… Best approach with caution and avoid eye contact. He can smell bad manners and tardiness from a mile off… Surviving on an almost exclusive diet of caffeine, the Ignisaurus will roam far and wide in search of its favourite beverage, _Ebony._ Hot or cold, but never tepid, this graceful creature will never pass up the opportunity to-.”

Ignis turned towards the window, exactly where Prompto was hiding. He ducked down immediately. After no footsteps approached, and his name was left uncalled, Prompto peeked around the far end of the shelving. Ignis was still facing the window. He decided it was best to move on.

Prompto sprang up to his full height, momentarily gathering a glance from Ignis as he continued to explain the situation to Noctis, who listened with a tortured intent. Prompto flashed a quick smile as he picked a dusty can from the shelf. He smeared time away with his thumb. The newly brightened label, pepped back up by the smallest attention, was one he recognised from his childhood.

_Corrall’s Homestyle Soup: Spicy Tomato_

A half smile pulled at his lips. With a silent sigh, he placed the can back on the shelf and lightly patted the top before walking away. As he continued padding further into the corner of the L-shaped shop, Prompto could hear low voices. He was already lowering behind a shelf when he pulled the viewfinder to his eye again. The fizzing in his stomach at this quiet, temporary peace warmed Prompto more than any soup or fire or sleeping bag could. He zoomed in and began his commentary, once again in his mimicry.

“And here we see two tols… Solitary creatures by nature, they often don’t get along so well with their own kind but here, a momentary truce had been struck.”

Prompto zoomed in, unable to read lips that moved around words too quiet to make out. Gladio was talking, eyes on the limited wares as he turned boxes around to read.

“Here we see them in their natural habitat, browsing from the high shelves of the-.”

He zoomed in on the shelf and read the red lettering on one of the containers. As he zoomed out, he caught a warm smile on Gladio’s face.

“Noodle section. As you can see, their height, eyesight and keen hearing allows them to simultaneously gather food and keep a watchful eye for ankle biting predators…”

Prompto slipped out from behind one shelf and quickly ducked behind one further away, still peeking around the side to have a clear line of sight at the pair. He kept the viewfinder at his eye and carried on.

“Such as myself. They do so by summoning awesome… wait not awesome… _exquisite_ weaponry and skill as they… they…”

As he zoomed out, Prompto frowned deep enough for his brows to push against the camera. He zoomed back in. Half-hidden by her legs, Rena’s hand flinched lightly, only to be smoothed steady by a tanned counterpart that held it in a loose grip. Prompto panned back up so fast, he saw the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling before focusing on them again. The warm smile Gladio had worn was steadily growing into a wider grin. Brown eyes were creasing, soft and mellow. Pale cheeks were blooming a gentle pink. Rena shook her head as she pressed back a smile, fighting it down as he smiled in fond satisfaction and chuckled inaudibly.

It was when she looked back up at him, standing at her side and loosely connected by their hands, that Prompto stopped breathing. Gladio leant down slightly. He watched her with care and spoke so quietly, Prompto had no chance of making it out. Rena glanced back up at him with a smile.

Prompto’s entire body tensed in one instant, as if he’d been zapped by an electric fence. It began low in his spine and spread out through his body in one squeezing wave that both forced a miniscule squeak from his throat and made his hands clench around the camera. The shutter cut loudly through the shop.

Smiles faded and hands lost touch as they turned around, eyes searching for the source. The only movement in the shop was Ignis and Noct turning back to the counter as the clerk returned empty handed, and the ringing of the bell above the door.

Chest heaving, Prompto was pressed against the brick wall of the shop and facing the chain link fence that surrounded it on three sides. He fought his face for control. It kept morphing between an incredulous grin that made his cheeks ache after only a few seconds, a deep, open-mouthed frown as he gaped around for an explanation or conclusion, _anything_ to make sense of _that._ It was already fading from his mind. Prompto opened the library on his camera.

There it was. The simple, candid moment. A blushing smile on one and sparking warmth on the other.

“Ha…” he breathed a laugh, beginning to rein in his breathing as the shock sank to his legs and made his knees shake.

The shop bell rang clear and high again.

Prompto quickly turned his camera off, only to switch it back on again and angle for a shot of a landscape he wasn’t really seeing. It was just there, but the lines of it were shaking, too blurred for him to line his composition. He flickered back to the saved image and bit his bottom lip to suppress a bubbling exclamation, some private cheer.

“Hey, bud?”

“Yup?” Prompto jumped to his feet, turning around and trying to fight the grin. He managed to tone it down to little more than a keen smile as Noct’s troubled frown weighed only a fraction of the heavy crown he’d eventually wear.

“They didn’t have any. We’re gonna fuel up then go somewhere else, try to get something, okay?”

“Sure,” he blurted, a little too bright and quick.

Noctis narrowed his eyes as his frown changed to a slightly more confused rendition.

“O-kay…” he trailed, turning around to walk away, only to spin back. “Are you okay? You seem a little… giddy? That caffeine finally wearing off? Like, are you in that part of being tired where everything’s kinda shiny?”

Prompto opened his mouth to answer, only to spot a dark shape behind Noct’s shoulder. Gladio was stalking towards the car, the tired expression holding firm around wary eyes. Ignis was close behind him, turning pale as the acrid odour of petrol stirred under his nose. Gladio put a hand on his shoulder and patted gently, taking the fuel head from his hand and continuing to fill up the car. He did a routine sweep of his perspective, landing on Prompto and Noctis long enough to notice he was being watched. He nodded and swept again.

“I, uh- yeah. Yeah! That’s exactly it! Super tired! Are we gonna go back to camp? Catch some z’s?” he asked, still fighting the broader smile from his face. Prompto had to work far too hard to reduce his expression to a thoughtful frown, concealing his mouth behind a hand meant to indicate consideration as he rested his chin in his palm.

“Right… Okay, well, we’ll be in the car. Don’t take too long. I know the view’s great, but just- yeah,” Noctis broke off awkwardly, shaking his head at Prompto’s sudden shift in temperament. He turned and headed for the car, mostly to hold a quiet conversation with Ignis.

Prompto swivelled on his heels and saw that view Noct was talking about. The hill swept away beneath them under a thick winter cloak of fog that hung heavy and smooth. Tall spruce, dull and dark in their hard colours pushed through as rougher patches; a fur collar to the velvet drape of mist. The stone arches the defined Duscae leapt from the landscape and held a granite thread still above the ground. They had waited hundreds, if not thousands, of years to be drawn taut and sew the earth to the core of Eos.

The true spectacle came when the sun broke through the clouds, cutting through the dull, blank day with bright blades. They were broken. Shafted light, the type he’d only ever seen in the Cosmogony, stabbing into the ground and brought it peace. The promise of death in the coming winter, but that it would return in another form, come spring.

Habit pulled Prompto’s viewfinder to his eye. He snapped a few shots, then decided that his angle would be better if he moved slightly to the right. Then he needed to walk forwards for framing. Right again for composition’s sake. Within ten minutes, Prompto had wandered nearly half a mile from the outpost.

He leant against a boulder, using it to steady himself as he caught the landscape in his lens and froze it with the metallic click of the shutter. There was a small, yet convincing voice in his head telling him to go back. Ignis’ patience would be all but gone. He’d either be distraught, furious, or completely numb. Prompto began running through the possibilities, and what would be the best way to act in each. A recurring theme was to stay quiet, and possibly avoid eye contact. A ‘don’t speak unless spoken to’ attitude. He breathed a laugh. That was how he’d first had to behave around Gladio. His various attempts to prove himself had landed him underneath the future Shield’s feet more often than not.

They’d looked happy. Settled. Gladio hadn’t looked tired. He was just relaxed, excited even, and Rena… Prompto had seldom seen her show so much. He pulled the viewfinder away from his eye and scrolled through his latest photographs, deleting blurry or squint duplicates of finer shots. He landed on that same, fateful moment again, feeling it warm him as he stood amongst freezing fog. Somehow, the fluorescent lighting, dull and faded by a yellowed bar bulb, was gentle to them. A crooked smile quirked onto his face.

It vanished when hands appeared either side of his shoulders and pinned him to the boulder. Prompto gasped sharply, clutching his camera to his chest. Dark eyes were fixed on him. Even after he recognised them, Prompto only relaxed partially.

“You alright?”

He nodded frantically. “Mhm.”

“You sure? You’re acting weird.”

There was no frown on her. No telling expression. She was unnervingly still and unreadable. Prompto didn’t know if she’d throttle or hug him, but he had a feeling she was swaying towards the former.

“Me? No! I’m- I’m fine! Perfectly a-okay! In fact, I think-.”

“Prompto, cut the shit. What happened?” Rena said flatly. The only thing moving on either of them was Prompto’s mouth as he choked around an answer.

“I-I might- that’s _maybe_ \- have seen something… new,” he carefully forced the words out, skirting around the obvious as much as he could.  She didn’t budge. Her silence coaxed him into filling that audible void. “In the shop… Which had a lot of cool stuff in it, let’s not forget those bubble wands- I might have-.”

“Prompto.” The warning in her tone was enough to make violet eyes widen fractionally as she stared at him.

“I saw you and Gladio.”

She didn’t move and waited for him to fill the quiet again with his harsh whispers.

“I saw you guys talking and- and holding hands and- wait. Why do you keep acting like you hate each other? You guys were so cold earlier, you shoulda just thrown ice at each other. Do the others know? Have you told-?”

Rena cut him off.

“No, we haven’t. Look, Prom, just keep it quiet. Please,” she said, barely above a whisper. It took him a moment to register her confirmation before he nodded his head quickly.

“Sure!” he confirmed. Rena eased back, no longer pinning him to the boulder and allowing him to stand free of it. He did so and lightly brushed himself down. “Hold on… why?”

She sighed and shrugged with one shoulder. “It’s still early days and we don’t want to make a mess- _more_ of a mess, if this doesn’t work out. We kind of agreed we’d rather it went away quietly and that nobody would know the difference.”

“Bummer,” he blurted, hand slapping to his mouth as his eyes widened at her.

“Realism, Prom,” she shook her head, perfectly calm at her own suggestion of the fragility of their changing relationship. The keystone hadn’t been placed yet, so the bridge was not one to be crossed carelessly. “Anyway. Are you surprised or something? ‘Cause you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No! No. Well, I mean- yeah. Just… kinda blindsided me there,” he admitted, sweeping his hair away with his hand, before tugging his beanie down onto it. “It’s good to see you two-.”

“Not trying to kill each other? Because we still do,” Rena nodded, curls falling thick and soft around her face.

When Prompto spoke, he was holding back a wider smile. The one he showed was genuine and sweet, a soft brightness. “Doing something for yourselves, I guess. Each other.”

Rena considered his gentle statement quietly for a moment, before stepping away and turning back to the slope.

“C’mon. We’d better get moving before Iggy skins somebody to make a new pair of shoes.”

“Shotgun!”

He raced up the hill, almost crawling over the steep incline as it rose in a foggy wave. Rena followed at a jog. Gladio was leaning back against the car, hands buried in his hoodie pocket as his words plumed in the air. His hushed discussion with Noctis ground to a halt when she arrived. Amber eyes stayed on Noct’s frown.

“Hey, Rena? How’d you feel about driving?”

She looked up from the ground, fully focused on him from the other side of the car. Eyes narrowed, she leant down to peer at Ignis. Sitting silently, one gloved hand so tight on the wheel the leather creaked, his eyes were screwed shut, face warping through expressions as he ground his teeth. Anything to alleviate the building pressure in his head.

Rena stood up straight again and locked on Noct. “Keys.”

The light jingle was interrupted by her catch. She made her way to Ignis door, quietly clicking it open before crouching just outside it.

“C’mon, you-.”

“I’m fine,” he said slowly, eyebrows raised as his jaw clenched so hard it threatened to crack his teeth.

“You’re not. To quote _you_ , you’re ‘in no fit state’. Do us a favour and take a break. Just till we get to the next post, alright?”

“I’m-.”

“Ignis.” Rena spoke quietly, her smooth tone the least abrasive to his crackling mind. It was an intrusion on the quiet he craved, but the quietest of the lot. “Please. You’d make any of us stop. Don’t be stubborn.”

A single, sarcastic beat of laughter left him as he pried an eye open. She sighed through her nose and cocked her head.

“Pot calling the kettle black, I know. Come on.”

“…Fine.”

He winced as he stood. Cold air only put knives through his temples as a rat scrabbled desperately at the inside of his skull. Some hushed voice in his brain told him that it was his own fault. Others quickly pounced on that one and silenced it. Ignis folded himself into the backseat and waited for what little warmth the car had to offer to soften the skewering of his brain.

The others piled into the car, careful to keep their door closes and seatbelt clicks soft. The ignition was turned. Four charging ticks were followed by the low purr of the engine. Rena pulled away and swept the road behind them. Once into fourth gear, and hidden in the dull shade of the trees, she spoke up quietly.

“Fucks sake, Iggy. How high’s the clutch in this thing?”

He smiled weakly as he leant his head back, allowing the vibrations from the engine to pass through the seat and slowly turn his mind to jelly. “Very.”

“Hold on,” Prompto began, only remembering to lower his voice when Noctis gave the back of his chair a subtle thump. He continued, barely above a whisper. “Why are _you_ driving? What about the whole catoblepas thing?”

She raised her eyebrows and glanced at Prompto. The long, smooth stretch of road was empty. It bore the scars of last winter. Potholes big enough to wash in, some stretching over half of the road’s width. She dodged them, slowing to a crawl as she edged off the tarmac, before taking off again.

“You know it’s not as interesting as you wanted it to be,” she promised.

Noctis leant forwards from the back and spoke quietly. “Tell us anyway. Pass the time.”

Rena briefly looked over her shoulder at him before climbing another gear.

“Alright.”

Half-smirking, Noctis made himself comfortable as Ignis remained perfectly still and silent at his side.  Gladio was looking out of his window, attention pulled by passing landmarks and objects as Duscae swept them up into its cloak.

“Needed money to get some things to fix the roof. We’d had a lot of rain, _serious_ rain. Ground came loose and a tree dropped on the house. The season had just closed back home, nothing but threat bounties and you need to speak to Meldacio for those jobs. I was… pff, twelve? No way I was getting anything from them. So, I hung around, kept an ear open, and eventually hear that there was a couple garula messing around. They kept straying onto the roads…”

As the softer voice took up a low melody, coursing through the experience and stamping words into it like footsteps over fresh snow, the car warmed. After a while, subtle hand gestures, enough to indicate size or relativity were thrown in. Prompto was curled up in his seat, knees to his chin as he pulled his hoodie over his hands and gently played with his nails.

An outpost was approaching, clawed towards them with every second her foot rested steady on the accelerator. She didn’t slow down, and kept on driving straight past the potential lair of Ignis’ relief.

“Hey, there-.”

“I know,” she nodded, one hand on the wheel. Her elbow rested on the car door, a hand buried in her hair and keeping her upright. “And shh. Those two are out for the count.”

He turned in his seat. Noctis and Ignis were fast asleep, a tawny mop resting on the younger’s shoulder as both leant against each other for the comfort of warmth and support. The thrum of the engine was enough to cover their softer snores and heavier breaths.

Prompto waited a second, chancing a glance at Gladio. He watched the trees witness their passing.

“So what are we gonna do? Go back to camp?”

“Keep driving. Stopping might wake them up. You should probably get some shuteye too, we’ll just keep going until Ignis wakes up or we run out of fuel,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Huh.”

Prompto let the small sound loose. He curled himself better in his seat before watching the woods and plains rush by, even the stone arches as they porpoised through an earthen sea. His eyes became heavy. Before long, his head was resting against the window, breath fogging against the glass as she drove on. She made a routine glance at the mirror. Mellow eyes were there, as they had been every time she’d checked the rearview on this drive. They didn’t dare speak, conscious of the light-sleeping nature of their companions and that they could be well awake.

“Prom.”

Something nudged his shoulder.

“Mllrgh.”

“Get up. Now.”

She pushed harder. The head of blond hair shook itself into a soft mess before settling back down lightly. He opened his eyes to see Rena, poised to get out of the driver’s seat. It was dark outside. The dull orange glow of a weak streetlamp was painting the black interior of the car in rusty tones. They filtered through dark hair as she watched him rouse. A small leather purse was pressed into his hand.

“Go get a room, okay?” she requested, dark features made bolder by the dim light. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

Prompto tried to wet the inside of his sleep-dried mouth, his tongue tacky against the roof of his palate. He blinked at her, then the purse before breaking into a yawn.

“Okie-dokie…”

He almost fell out of the car, limbs still heavy and soft from sleep. The chill in the air soon sharpened his bones against his own flesh. Prompto wrapped his arms around himself and made for the small, lit window of the motel. He tapped on the wooden counter, before reaching into the window to ring a small, brass bell. Temptation was pulling him to ring it again.

“And what can I do for you?”

The receptionist, huddled in a thick blanket and red-nosed, was as tired and fresh from sleep as Prompto.

“Honey, please. It’s damn cold out. What d’you need?”

He shook himself awake again before answering the middle aged woman, her face wrinkled by time and the hot sun of Duscaean summers; something that all but disappeared in winter.

“Got any vacancies? By any chance…” he trailed, voice becoming small.

The woman frowned lightly at him as she wrapped the blanket more closely around herself. “Course we do. You alone? Just one room?”

“There’s uh, there’s five of us.”

“Y’all want five rooms?” she asked, desperate to get an answer and slip back into the warm of a less draughty space.

“No, no. Just one, please,” he nodded, sniffing as the cold numbed his nose. “Just tonight.”

“That’ll be three hundred.”

Prompto opened the bag and readied his cash for paying. There was still some left, though not enough for another room. He was about to hand over the money when a sudden mischievous thought came into his mind. It was small, straightforward and harmless. The arrow knocked and drew back as he reached for his own wallet. He leant back onto the counter and pushed the money across, loosening his shot.

“Actually… can I make that two please? And not right next to each other, if that’s possible. Just- yeah.”

The woman frowned for a moment before shaking her head and quickly sorting the gil. A mitted hand emerged from the small window, presenting two keys.

“There you go. Check out’s before ten.”

He smiled brightly at her. “Thanks! We’ll be outta your way by then.”

Prompto was a few steps away, the woman still smiling gently at his luminous presence, when he turned back and crept towards the window again.

“You guys don’t have any coffee, do you?”

~*~

“I just thought, with Iggy being kinda fragile, it’d be good if we put all the loud sleepers in one room.”

“You saying I snore?”

“Like a truck,” Noctis yawned, only briefly upright before he flopped down on a bed, humming at the softer warmth supplied by sheets as cheap as these. At least they were fresh.

Gladio took one look at Ignis. He was brooding over a cup of chamomile tea. It’d do little for the headache. The gentle steam and scent just gave him something to focus on and ground himself away from the pain with. His hand spanned across his eyes, rubbing at his temples before he pinched the bridge of his nose and then removed his glasses altogether, setting them down in his lap as his lashes fanned out over his cheeks. Ignis was steadying himself, trying to stay still in the middle of a storming migraine.

Amber eyes fixed back on Prompto and burned. Gladio still wore a tired frown, but over eyes that threatened to spark in anger. He had to. They’d agreed. He would keep his end of the deal, even if it meant playing anger on a soft instrument. It was all grounded in reality, and Gladio knew that the best lies had a thread of truth to them. He was tired, but not exhausted. He was irritated by the intrusion, but not angry. He was apprehensive, but not so much so that he’d refuse it. Gladio fixed on something he seldom used; stubborn spite.

“Have you told _her_?” he demanded, putting a false, bitter heat into his voice.

Prompto held up a hand, before pulling his phone from his back pocket. He typed rapidly and sent a text away with a faint fwip.

“Yup.”

“Gladio, please. Just swallow your pride. I don’t know what she did, but please just let it go, for goodness’ sake.”

Ignis’ quiet, even tone had threatened defeat with every consonant. The only parts of him that moved was the finger and thumb rubbing his temples, and the steady rise and fall of his chest

He held out his hand. The key weighed heavy.

“Do us all a favour and sort whatever crap went down between the you two. You’ve been miserable as hell,” Noct muffled into the sheets.

Gladio fixed his frown on each of them, before shaking his head with a growl. He turned on his heels and left the room. Ignis winced in expectation. The door would slam and that sharp ripple cutting through his mind would be enough to make him feel nauseous again. The whoosh of air as the door swung had him clenching his jaw.

It clicked shut quietly as heavy footsteps thundered away.

Gladio’s eyes fixed momentarily on the small plaques fixed on the plain motel doors, reading the numbers as he passed and closing in on the room. He _knew_ he’d heard a shutter earlier. A quiet word with her had left him waiting on a verdict as she investigated. No opportunities for a quick conversation in private had occurred since then, and she was too busy driving to text. He was still waiting on an answer.

Once at the right door, he turned the key and opened it up, stepping in before shutting it behind him and flicking the light switch. Nothing happened.

“Oh, perfect…” he sighed.

He felt his way around the room, surfaces reinforced by what little light the dim outpost lamps provided. His fingertips found the bed. The table. The cold ceramic of a lamp. A cable.

Half blinded, even by the dim yet sudden light, the room was thrown into visibility. He leant across the bed and switched on the other lamp. The pale sheets were covered in a thickly knitted navy throw. He gave the room a routine sweep. Magnolia walls were warmed by the dull lightbulbs. He spotted the white bathroom door, with a lock, the wicker chair that undoubtedly creaked like a bulrush orchestra, and the horizontal wooden blinds over the window.

After toeing off his shoes, Gladio dumped his holdall between the bed and the wall, fished out his phone charger and a fresh change of clothes. They’d been destined to become his underlayers, if it got bitterly cold. So far, he’d been able to keep warm. Especially when they got a moment alone.

He plugged in his phone and left it on the bedside table. The brighter, yellow light of the bathroom made him squint as he padded in and tested the shower. It sputtered and coughed freezing water at his hand, only to smooth its flow and warm slowly. A faint ping over the water made him turn towards the bedroom. Peeling his shirt over his head and screwing his nose up at the familiar smell of sweat, he made his way to his phone.

_On my way back._

It was from half an hour before. While they’d raided the outpost shop for whatever they could find- but no coffee, once again- she’d taken off back to camp to pack up and gather the dogs from their stationed patrol around the haven. The boys had managed to truffle out chocolate bars, hopefully amounting to enough caffeine to take the edge off Ignis’ migraine. The only painkillers they’d found were sold by the dose and were nowhere near strong enough.

Gladio used the time to shower, scrubbing the slick of cold, clinging of the morning’s sweat away. The tiny bottles of shower gel and shampoo were lemon scented. That perfume alone, and the gentle humidity, took him back to years before. To summer evenings in the Crownsguard training halls. Rain pelted the outdoor paddock and echoed through the inner room. For a moment, his hand were slick with lemon oil as he conditioned the leather grip of his training sword. It was a time he knew well, and one he’d repeated over and over until he could call the ritual subconscious. The scent of lemons always threw him back into that room. The pressures had been a little more mindful of the breadth of the shoulders they rested on back then. Now they weighed full, and he’d grown to bear them.

He kept an ear out for another text as he brushed his teeth, dried and pulled tired limbs into the black basketball shorts and a loose t-shirt. Gladio left the bathroom, rubbing at the damp mess of his hair with a towel. Three soft knocks stopped him halfway to the bed. He padded over and opened the door.

“So, Prompto knows.”

“Everything, or…?”

“Just the whole down-low thing. He knows more than he needs to,” she cocked her head, burying a hand in her hair as she shouldered her rucksack. Gladio stepped aside and let her in, locking the door quietly behind her.

“You find somewhere to put the dogs?”

“Yep. There’s a little hunter’s compound at the other end of the post. Swapped the venom sacs for one of their doghouses. They’re all fed and tied up. They’ll be fine,” Rena confirmed quietly, setting her bag down on the wicker chair and wincing lightly when it crunched.

“Shower’s good. A little weak, but it’s warm,” he said, the depths of his voice softened by the dim lighting. He drew level with her, still rubbing at his hair and peered out of the window. When he glanced sideways, he tried to read her. “You okay?”

Rena barely looked up.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?” she asked, voice so quiet it had gone hoarse.

“Dunno. I can never tell, so I guess asking’ll have to do.”

A laugh puffed from her nose. She turned to him with a muted smile. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Tired as hell.”

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

He shrugged heavily and headed towards his phone. “Yeah, but that was _way_ too early. You always that pissed in the mornings?”

“Only when I’ve got shit needing done and people aren’t keeping up,” she turned over her shoulder.

They stood in opposite corners of the room, kept apart by the bed. Gladio gave it a quick glance before looking at her. Dark eyes were still on the bed, mapping every minimal ripple of sheets thrown on in a practiced hurry. Realisation pushed at him gently. Every flinch, no matter how slowly he moved. It made him doubt her, and he gritted his teeth at himself for it. He’d given her the gun, and she’d brought it back to share the shots with him.

He was speaking before he knew it, hearing his own voice float out into the room like a lonely boat.

“I can sleep on the floor, if you want-.”

Rena looked up, locked on him for barely a second before shaking her head and shrugging.

“It’s not that different to the tent. There’s just not three of them in the way.”

“You sure?” he asked. The last thing he wanted to do was prove a reputation he’d been branded with since high school. He’d picked the pace and he was going to stick to it.

“Yeah. Plus, you’ve pinned me, I’ve pinned you,” she reasoned, weaving her head from side to side. “Not an issue for me. I could sleep on the floor, if that works better-.”

“No, I’ll-.”

“Your back’ll seize up and I can’t do massages. If anybody’s getting the floor, it’s me.”

“Rena, I’ll take the floor if you-.”

“Or how about we get the fuck over ourselves and just sleep in the damn bed?”

Gladio chuckled into a smile and let his head drop until he was facing the floor. He looked up through his lashes. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

She groaned quietly and nipped into the bathroom. He heard the door shut and settled onto the bed, pulling a spare book from his holdall. He nestled his shoulders against the tawny wooden headboard and opened the dogeared page.

As prose slipped by, stamped and stained into the pages like oil on broken ice, Gladio’s mind began to stray. At first, he put it down to tiredness. A bone-chilling run into the woods this morning, the consequent crouching, crawling and brief stalemate before the attack had made him heavy. His head shifted to the brighter, warmer times of the day. The quiet look on the hunt before they’d split off. The steady keenness of her eyes in the car mirror. How warm and soft and rough her hand had been, full of contradictions as she flinched away at first, then squeezed gently. Then he came to this evening, to the roses the cold had slapped into her cheeks and how much the changing seasons suited her. To her quiet laugh and the shutting of the bathroom door.

Gladio couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was missing. He closed his eyes and replayed the last ten minutes in his head. He narrowed it down. The door shut, over and over in his head, but he never heard the lock click.

He glanced up to the thin seams of light around the bathroom door. He could hear the water running beyond, interrupted by her as she moved under it. The image was quick in his mind, fast enough to jerk him awake as his mind painted the lines of her skin, the strong and tired muscles that never complained to anyone else, to the softness and the warmth she’d retained even as the rest of them had half-frozen.

_Not an invitation._

Gladio shook his head and tried to banish the image, distracting himself with prose. He buried himself in a deeper paragraph. A faster pace kept him invested. The water cut off quietly and without earning his attention. In that fresh, dim silence, he heard a soft curse. Gladio’s eyes left the page and focused on the door.

“You okay?”

“Yep, just fuckin’ stupid,” she cursed, mostly herself. The thin door had one benefit; very little muffling effect. “Ah fuck… Can you go into my bag?”

Gladio dog-eared the page and got up from the bed. Tired feet padded across the old floorboards, finding one that creaked loudly enough to make him jump. “Why?”

“Forgot my clothes.”

“You sure?” he called, pulling her rucksack off the chair. “They the ones sitting under it?”

“… Grey and navy?”

“Yep.”

“That’s the ones,” she confirmed, quietly smacking her head against the bathroom wall and damning herself. One long day, and a sudden change to her evening, had thrown her a little.

“They’re outside the door,” he said, leaving them on the floor and turning back towards the bed, eyes on the floor even as he faced and walked away. “Not looking.”

“It’s alright, I’ve got a towel.”

The door opened before she’d finished speaking, and just as Gladio dropped onto the bed and picked up his book again. She crouched and picked the clothes up, briefly glancing at him. Sudden sound and her voice had gathered his attention. The sight of her had kept it.

Softened in the dimmer lights, shadows pooled in the subtle hollows of her collarbone and her dark features were made to contrast more against pale, fresh skin, blossoming with bruises from the hunt. His eyes were wandering of their own accord. The towel came to her knees as she half-hid behind the door. The mess of her hair had been gathered into a loose bun, curls fraying from it as she watched him.

“Sorry,” he blurted, forcing his eyes back to the book. She snorted softly and ducked back into the bathroom, pulling the door until it was almost closed.

“Nah, say what you think.”

“I’m speechless,” he called, watching the door and awaiting her return.

“You’re full of shit, is what you are. Pick a damn word, or just a sound, I don’t know…” Rena trailed off.

Gladio shook his head with a grin before fighting it back. The two sweeping notes of a wolf whistle cut through the room. The faint echoes of movement in the bathroom went quiet. The door opened, a hand appeared and promptly flipped him off. His laugh was warm as he shook his head. The bathroom door opened again.

The navy turned out to be cotton shorts that ended inches from the top of her thighs, with white around the hem and side. The grey was a loose, old Crownsguard training tank. While the neckline usually came three or so inches below the clavicle, she’d cut this one to the mid-chest. Rena left the days clothes on the chair, folded up and once again under her rucksack before returning to the bathroom to brush her teeth and let her hair down.

Conscious of his attention, Gladio focused on the book and managed another few paragraphs before the bed dipped at his side. He waited for her to settle before giving her a brief glance. Her knees were pulled up, thighs holding an open notebook as she scrolled through her phone and began to write on the blank page. He’d only seen that book once before; in his father’s office when he’d been called in to give his review of the first hunt. She was the only one required to submit a written record.

He watched her pen in a careful hand, comparing the notes she’d typed on her phone, to those she’d scribbled on a scrap of paper, and combining them into a cleaner record. She continued to write, even as she spoke.

“Don’t look at it, my handwriting’s shit.”

He glanced up at her, only to see her sharp focus being held on the page, as pointed and precise as the pen.

“It’s not bad. You should see mine,” he cocked his head. Rena cursed quietly and tore out the page bearing the error. She’d barely finished the word that held it, but it still had to go. She was about to fold the page and tuck it away when he held out his hand. “Lemme show you.”

Rena met his eyes briefly before passing the paper and pen to him. Gladio shut the book and used it to give himself a solid base. The pen was warm in his hand, and inky enough to flow smoothly across the page, staining through if he stilled for too long. He finished his cursive note and handed it back to her.

_My calligraphy ain’t up to scratch. – G_

“See, why does yours have to be so neat?”

“It’s not. It’s a mess,” he frowned gently. Rena frowned back before shaking her head and starting to write in a quick scrawl. “Peaked when I was in high school.”

“Whenever we had homework,” she began, speaking quietly as the pen scratched against the paper. “my mother would always check it before we submitted it. If one word, or even a letter, wasn’t neat enough, we’d have to erase it all and start again. As many times as it took.”

She handed him the note. The writing wasn’t as cursive or fine as his own, but it was completely correct, no errors in sight.

_Essays were always the worst. They’d take hours._

Gladio shrugged as he put the paper in her waiting hand. “Perfectly legible to me, I don’t see a problem.”

“Problem was it wasn’t what she wanted.”

The note was handed back, this time with finer lettering and far shorter. He could see the ink blots of where she’d stopped herself making mistakes.

_Takes longer like this._

He glanced up from the paper to see her already back to working on her report, carefully carving letters into the page in her neatest handwriting. Gladio’s eyes circled over her. The lamplight shone dappled through the cascade of curls on her right-hand side, outlining the soft features that could hold such hardness when she chose. He followed the line of her neck, to the fading freckles of her shoulder and onwards. His gaze crept along a strong arm to the hand that never stopped twitching, tapping at the page, holding it smooth and taut for her to write. He read a few of the words she’d left on the paper, then moved his focus over her thigh.

Gladio’s eyes widened as he locked on a long scar.

It ran from above her knee, broadening as it tore through otherwise smooth skin before tapering off again and hiding under her shorts. It was faded to a silvery lilac against her pale tone. The scar was a type he’d seen on older members of the guard. In texture, it was similar to the rips in Noct’s back that had always made him feel slightly defeated, and then determined. Smooth skin thickened by its rush to fix.

He felt himself staring and knew the feeling of being under such scrutiny. Broken glass grated against flesh as he snapped his eyes back to his book and tried to read. His own attention was drawn to his legs. The line tattoo stamped culture into his right calf, and he cursed that he had to hide it in public whilst his other was a mark of honour. That black thread inked around his leg was as much his own as the eagle on his back. Gladio’s eyes drifted to the thin scar on his thigh, peeking out from underneath his shorts. Still fresh and pink but healed through no small amount of quick-thinking, skill, and a few diluted potions when he got back to speed the healing process. It may have been hidden under his shorts, but he knew, as well as she did, that it was there. Gladio’s eyes drifted back to her rendition.

While he watched the rip in her leg stay still, some part of him was sure that it could split open and bleed thickly. Another was certain that a knife could be run against it and not a drop would be spilled.

He was motionless. No pages were being turned. His foot wasn’t wiggling restlessly in her peripheral and his breathing was too steady. Prose wasn’t pulling him in its tide. She’d spotted him purely though his own stillness.

Instinct told him to look up. Dark green eyes were waiting for him.

“Sorry,” he blurted, turning back to his book with a strict focus.

Rena closed her own with the hollow clap of a hardback and left the bed. She tucked it into her rucksack and brought the bag over to her bedside, digging lightly through the contents to pull out a bottle of water. Gladio was still staring at the page, reading the same sentence over and over again when the mattress dipped again. He cautioned a look.

Cross-legged on top of the covers and passing the bottle back and forth between her hands, she was watching him expectantly. He locked on her and absently let the book shut over his thumb. Rena pointed to the scar and spoke quietly, voice as soft as the dim lamplight.

“One very pissed off spiracorn.”

He swallowed and glanced at the scar briefly before bringing his focus back to her. “It’s deep. Need stitches?”

She breathed a laugh and took a sip of water. Rena shook her head and dropped her eyes from his.

“More than I gave it, anyway.”

The softness left Gladio’s eyes for a slight widening.

“When’d you get it?”

Puffing out her cheeks, she narrowed her eyes and pried the answer from memory.

“I was… fourteen? I think. Don’t really remember it.”

She saw his frown and weaved her head a little.

“Took half a bottle of whiskey, four or five hours, and I blacked out twice. That thing,” she pointed to the scar again. “was how I found my pain threshold.”

Gladio’s head was swimming. It had conjured images of a younger version of the already young woman in front of him who had known too much for her age. Shorter hair, fuller cheeks, rounder eyes and a thigh torn open until the muscle was loose and twitching with blood like some gory curtain. He could hear the scream. Then he wondered if there’d even been one.

It was the same scream he’d heard when she’d been given that scar on her cheek. It didn’t belong to her. It was one he’d heard on three, bloodcurdling occasions. The first time Iris had fallen from a tree and broken her arm. The second when she’d almost been hit by a car. The third had ripped her from the silk smoke of a nightmare she’d refused to tell him about, to this day. Iris was tough, and not just because she was an Amicitia.

Gladio met her eyes again and was able to look a little deeper. Whether it was tiredness, the new information, or if she was letting him, he had no idea. She was showing him more words that he still didn’t understand. It would take time. He knew that much.

He pointed to the scar on his face and spoke in a warm, rough voice.

“Drunk guy.”

“Were you drunk?” she asked. There was a glimmer of something. She was peeking out of the woods, let by curious senses. He couldn’t see her spying on him, but he did feel watched.

“No,” he sighed, putting the book on his bedside table and absently tapping on his lap. “I was with Noct. We went out one night and, yeah... Got myself backed into a corner.”

“Knife?”

“Broken glass,” Gladio said, his eyes dropping from hers. He glanced back up as she took a drink and spoke in an accepting matter-of-fact tone. “Occupational hazard.”

She snorted, half choking on a mouthful of water. Fist held in front of her mouth, she focused on the pillow to swallow as Gladio smiled. Rena coughed in her throat.

“Sorry.”

“S’fine. I was trying to make you laugh.”

Dark eyes on lifted from the sheets and met his. He’d never seen her so soft. She was a swearing, brawling, borderline psychotic mess of a human being with limits he was yet to find. For her age, she’d known too much but just enough to give her wisdoms and philosophies overlooked by those older but living faster. Rena was a thinker. She’d been alone enough to use her own mind as company and she lived there.

But she was soft.

It was all there. Every hazy curl, every faded freckle stolen away by winter’s dark, even in the green of her eyes. The birds fell to quieter coos at night in a forest.

Silence fell between the two of them. After a few too many moments under his curious observations, she looked at the sheets and gently picked at a thread. When she lifted her gaze back up, she was met by a soft frown over warm, mellow brown. Her words fell as quiet as snow.

“I’ve never done this before. Any of it.”

Gladio took a deeper breath and sat up from the headboard. He spoke carefully. “As in, dated?”

Rena shook her head, dark curls falling to hide one of her eyes. “Any of it. Never dated, never kissed anybody, never slept with anyone. A whole lot of ‘never’s’.”

Thick lashes blinked around round eyes. He narrowed them slightly, as if a change of frame would alter anything she’d just said.

“Wait, so you’ve never…?” he trailed off, pointing minimally to her lap, then his own. She shook her head again. Gladio took another moment and began to nod, before abruptly speaking again in an incredulous tone. “What? Why’d you never-?”

“Didn’t get around to it.”

As much as he fought it, a puzzled frown was fixing on his features. “The hell does that- it’s not like cleaning your room, how did you not get around to it?”

“I was a little busy,” she cocked her head, taking another sip of water.

“It doesn’t take long! Especially not the first time. How- just-,” his shoulders rose to his ears as he looked around the room, and then back at Rena. “How come you’ve-?”

“Gladio. You grew up in a city. Loads of potential partners. There were fifteen miles between me and anybody not related to me. I’m country, not backwoods,” Rena reeled off, enough to still him in his tensing state. She slowed herself down and spoke with her smooth, calm tone, peppered with an edge of humour. “Don’t get me wrong, I know what’s going on down there. _Virgin_. Not the fuckin’ oracle.”

He laughed a little, still reining himself in.

“It’s not a big deal, so don’t make it one.”

“It’s a big deal! To me, anyway. It’s not a _problem,_ but it’s… it’s a thing,” he said. Rena was watching him with a slightly amused smile. Gladio remembered himself and shook the nonsense from his head. When he locked back on her, it was with cautious sincerity. “Do… you want to…?”

He was relieved at the steadiness of her. There was no apprehension, no fear, just her own thoughts as she made up her mind.

“Not right now. I’m kind of bushwhacked,” she nodded, taking another mouthful of water. Gladio watched her throat move as she swallowed. “And you’re distracted as fuck.”

“Nah, I’m tired too. I mean we could, if you want to. Just say the word and I’ll see what I can do.”

“It’s sex, you’re not fixing a fuckin’ sink!” she laughed, head falling forward until she was a mop of messy curls on lightly shaking shoulders. Gladio found himself laughing with her, head shaking as he remapped his view.

_Hunter. Fighter. Blasphemer. Joker. Badass. Virgin._

_Alright._

The new pair talked on. About anything. From drinks, to the more memorable moments of their unfinished youths, to philosophy and the stars. It took a few hours before they fell asleep. Gladio was flat on his back, one foot tucked underneath his other knee as a hand rested on his chest. He faced the bedside table, and the lamp that glowed gently with residual heat. The other hand shifted in sleep. It was resting on her hip as she lay on her front, one arm folded beneath her as the other wrapped around to guard her nape. Hidden beneath the mussed thicket of her hair, her primary sense was her hearing.

She started to stir for no reason, and at nothing. The bed was warm beneath her, and there was a weight across her back. Rena tensed at the dulled sound of a key in a lock. Led by her fingertips, she found the end of the duvet, the bedframe, the table leg and finally, the familiar hide of her rucksack. Her hand closed around the hunting knife as something shifted in the room. Gladio moved beside her, taking a deep breath and huffing it out.

The creak in the floorboards was the final straw for both of them.

They shot from the bed. The room flashed blue. Fists formed around fabric as they forced the intruder against a wall. Gladio had his broadsword in hand, poised over his shoulder as he blinked through the darkness. The lighter steel of her knife glinted against a throat. Teeth gritted, they held their ground.

Rena could smell apples. Tart green apples, almost fizzy. And limes.

“Fucking hell, _Prom,”_ she growled, letting go of his shirt and pulling her knife away.

A weak, shaking whimper left him as he pressed himself flat to the wall.

“Blondie?!” Gladio asked. He cast the broadsword back and padded to the bedside to switch on his lamp.

Prompto was flush against the plaster, wide-eyed and open-mouthed under a mop of fine, soft hair. His chest was heaving, but the air never passed his throat. They glanced at each other. Eyes hazy from sleep, Gladio was dark-circled and husky, his almost black hair sticking up at the back from a sleeping while it was damp. Rena looked the same as always. Messy hair and focused. The recent rousing had left her more expressive though, frowning reluctantly as her quick sharpening pierced through the softness of sleep before she’d had a chance to harden herself.

“ _Breathe,”_ she reminded, circling into the room as she buried a hand in her hair to hold herself up by the back of the neck.

Prompto took a loud gulp of air, only to hold it when he locked on Gladio again. A genuinely tired expression was cast over the strong lines. One that made more boyish features immediately apologise.

“N-Noct wanted to talk to you about something.”

“It can’t wait?” he asked, voice as rough as he felt in an exhausted tone. A frown pulled at him. “Why didn’t he come here, then?”

“Why didn’t you just knock?” Rena tilted her head.

“I dunno! I didn’t wanna wake anybody else up trying to wake you guys up and I coulda texted but your phones might’ve been turned off or something… He- he didn’t say. He just asked me to come get you, so… I did.”

Gladio gave a ragged sigh, feeling the bed wrap its wanton arms around him to pull him back to warm sheets and the comforting bliss of oblivion. Prompto looked at Rena as she took another drink of water. She glanced sideways at Gladio and cocked her head towards the door. He shook his head and opened his eyes to Prompto.

“Let’s make this quick. I’m tired as hell.”

Prompto nodded, muttering apologies as Gladio shepherded him from the room and followed him through the small motel hallways. He waited until they were five or so rooms away from theirs, before groaning quietly at Prompto.

“The hell were you thinking?”

He turned around with a frown, only to spot the exasperation on Gladio’s features. Prompto choked around an answer as Gladio held up the spare key Prompto had dropped on the floor.

“I don’t know! I just thought- with you guys being together and all, might be nice for you to get a little alone-time,” he whispered harshly, frantically focused on the ugly carpets and tarnished room numbers of the motel.

Gladio’s tone was darker. “Meaning?”

“Well, I mean… You’re _you,_ and she’s _her,_ and well, you guys are _you guys_ and-.”

A broad chest appeared in front of him, stopping him dead as a frown pulled at thicker brows. Gladio widened his eyes to lock with a pair of cosmic blues.

“You think I’m just trying to get in her pants?”

Prompto gaped, surprising even himself when his answer came as a question. “No?”

Gladio’s shoulders fell as he glared at the ceiling. He brought a heavy gaze back down onto him. Prompto know that look. He hadn’t had it from Gladio before, but he knew it anyway. The softer frown over tired eyes. The lips that pressed before speaking. Disappointment.

“She’d have my balls for a keychain.”

Gladio shook his head and turned away, continuing to the other room as he tried to haul his own reputation off through the nape of his neck, as if it were a shirt. He knew it ran deeper than that. That it stained him as much as the ink. That if the same things were said about her, and he’d thought some of them only to be proven wrong, she’d be a slut. A whore. Nothing more than another fuck. A notch in the belt. She’d be what Gladio heard when people said player, heartbreaker, ladies’ man… Insincere, convenient and useful.

“I’m sorry, man. Really! I didn’t mean to-.”

Gladio gave him a look, and Prompto saw just how tired, inside and out, a person could be.

* * *

_Please let this work._

The dogs were hushed after a few barks announced his presence. The lock clicked, and the door opened to reveal her peeking around the edge of it.

“Hey,” she greeted quietly, searching him for clues as she opened the door wider and leant against the wood.

Rena gathered what she could from the dark blue jeans, a marled grey t-shirt that draped across him when he exhaled and the green leather jacket he’d broken out ever since the first cold rain had doused the city. He took a deeper breath and fixed on her with a determined smile.

“I’ve made a decision-,”

“Oh, here we fuckin’ go.”

“that you, as a young lady- _woman_ , need to be properly courted and treated with respect,”

“Nice save.”

“and so, I’m going to make it my top priority-,”

“Second top, at most. You’ve got the whole Shield thing going on.”

“would you let me finish, please?” he blurted, ending with a laugh. She snorted and coughed in her throat before bringing her eyes back up to him.

“Course. On you go, say your piece.”

“Alright… where was I?”

“Standing right there.”

_“Rena.”_

The word shook as she laughed. “Priority?”

“Ah yeah. So, my second top priority, which just doesn’t sound as good if you ask me, is to woo and romance you,” he said with finality. A softly proud smile spread across his lips as he looked at her. Her gently furrowed brows made one of his own rise.

“Right… and how much do you think that’s going to involve?”

“As much as you can take,” he cocked his head, as if he were giving her a mission briefing and warning her of deployment conditions. “The whole gig. Classic stuff but I’m gonna try to avoid the cornier crap.”

“Right… So, this’ll have nothing to do with _those?”_ she asked, pointing a thumb over her shoulder.

Gladio peered aside. A small bouquet of white hyacinths and pink peonies so pale they were almost white, had been put in a small glass jug, and rested on a side table. His mouth fell open softly before he looked back at her.

“You could’ve put them in a vase.”

“I don’t have a vase and how was I supposed to know they were for me?” she asked quietly, gesturing for him to come in. His shoulders rose as he turned back to her.

“Who else would they be for?!”

“I don’t know? Iris? You said she had a big test the other day.”

“Then why would I send them to you?!” he asked, an incredulous smile spreading under wide eyes.

“You… might’ve wanted to give them to her in person! I don’t know, Gladio, just- gnah!” she ended with a small sound of frustration, crossing her arms, loosely as the dogs circled him, pushing at his hands and smelling the city on him. She abated. “Fine.”

Rena took the glass jug and ducked into her kitchen. Cupboards opened and closed. Water sloshed. Quiet, barely-there footsteps became slightly louder as she emerged, a small ecru pitcher holding the flowers as the ivy binding the bouquet spilled over the sides. She placed it on the side table and turned it slightly to fuss.

“There. Better?”

He looked at the flowers for a solid four seconds before flicking back to her. “I’m still getting you a vase.”

“Don’t get me a vase! I don’t need a vase!” she protested to the ceiling, head shaking as the words fell into a groan.

“You _will.”_

“No, I really won’t. That jug’ll do fine,” she pointed to it, only for Ochre to lick at her hand. “You really don’t need to get me flowers, though.”

“I wanted to,” he assured, briefly glancing down at Seyna as she curled up on the couch and watched him. “Anyway, I’ve got a little plan for us tonight. Nothing big, nothing fancy. Just a little-.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Date.”

“ _And_ you said it.”

“Nothing crazy.”

Rena sighed and played with the dog’s ear as she crossed one arm over her front.

“What happened to keeping it quiet?”

“A couple hours won’t gonna prove anything, to anyone, okay? Please just go with it?” Gladio asked, tilting his head a soft smile. She watched him for a few moments, reading the lines of him and trying to gauge his plan.

“Fine.”

“There we go,” he cheered. Rena shook her head and padded away to her bedroom.

“Just… let me get changed.”

“You got it,” he called quietly. A firm nudge at his leg brought his attention down to Ochre.

“And Gladio?”

“Yeah?” he asked, scratching the top of the dogs head.

“They’re really nice.”

Smiling, Gladio took another look at the small bunch of flowers, pleased with his choice and how they looked in the room.

Slowly but surely, she was carving it into a home, seeping into the brickwork. The battered sofa had a soft, cream woollen throw draped lazily over one side; a prime location Seyna had claimed as her own. A small table stood at one end of the sofa, currently supporting the jug of flowers and a small bowl that held her keys. At the other end, the brass stem of a lamp held a paper ball about a foot and a half in diameter, that set a gentle glow about the room. It put gold in the bare brick walls, and almost made them soften back to the clay they’d started as. She had an iron coat stand that held her flannel shirt and the dog leads.

It was the small touches. Things like the terracotta pots holding herbs on the windowsill; the quiet presence of the dogs; the low light that relaxed the eyes first, then spread throughout the self. The fact she was playing music, barely loud enough to hear but enough to keep silence at the door.

“This alright?”

She’d kept the dark wash jeans on. The smooth fabric of a white top draped and wrapped across her front as she shouldered into a brown biker jacket, the leather plainer than his own and sporting a seasoned patina. Rena tucked the steel of the dog tags into her shirt and gestured lightly to herself.

The corner of Gladio’s mouth quirked upwards as he locked on the eye that wasn’t hidden under her hair.

“Perfect.”

“You didn’t even look.”

“Don’t have to,” he explained softly, watching as she fought a pinker shade from her cheeks. The sight alone made him break into a grin.

“Oh, so you know I’m wearing my heels then?”

His eyes shot down to her feet and a pair of shoes that were not the black velvet he was expecting. Leather boots, less scuffed and lighter than the ones she wore to hunt.

“Got you,” she said, walking past him and picking up her keys. “Where are we going?”

“Ah, it’s a surprise.”

“Oh gods…”

“Nah, you’ll like it,” he reassured following as she left the apartment and put her keys in the door.

She looked up with a raised eyebrow that only got higher when he poked his head back into the apartment and looked at the dogs.

“I’ll have her back by ten.”

Rena snorted softly, shaking her head as she locked up. When she turned away from the door, he was a few steps ahead and holding out his hand. She took it. Somehow, his hands were always warm and careful. She could feel the rougher patches of the callouses, and if she focused, the soft nicks of papercuts.

His other hand, however, was currently holding his phone as he tapped at random.

“What’re you up to?” she asked, with careful but genuine curiosity.

“I’m,” he started strong, then faded out as he spoke. “buying… flowers…for Iris…”


	12. Effervescent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the relationship begins to blossom, thorns arise when real life weighs heavy on both Gladio and Rena, each in their own ways. Pressure begins to test the new couple, and the cost of secrecy is having no one else to rely on.

Steel on steel rang clear through the hall.

He held his force against a steel guard. Stuck in stalemate and with full hands, Rena brought the shield up, letting the edge of his weapon shave against it, before blocking him from tapping her thigh.

“Idea.”

“Shoot.”

“Teach me how to use a shield?” she asked. A flash of blue cast it back into the armiger as Gladio brought a strike down from above her. Reinforcing her sword with a hand on the steel, he suppressed a smile before stepping away and swinging for her legs. Rena darted back.

A raised eyebrow came with a question. “Any shield in particular?”

The broadsword cut through the air and swept down to bite her shoulder. A quick burst of light let her block the impact as he held pressure, before easing off. He stepped closer, blade flat against the shield. Rena peeked out from underneath.

“This one,” she said, wiggling the handheld wall of Glaivesteel.

“Can do.”

Gladio cast his sword back into the armiger and stood alongside her.

“Okay, stretch that out a little,” he coaxed, pushing the inner side of the shield to extend her arm and give him a fuller view. Eyes as rich as honey made their observations. Experience made him quick. There were flaws he’d felt in his technique only to iron them out over years of practice. Maintaining that level of performance required constant self-criticism, pulling at the threads of standard to ensure it remained without catches that could quickly become holes.

“Your grip’s good,” Gladio began, his focus shifting to her wrist. “Feeling it hit here when you defend?”

He brushed a light fingertip over the back of her wrist. Her arm flinched minimally, but enough for him to see. Amber eyes made a checking glance to her face. She closed her eyes briefly.

“Sorry,” came as a quiet apology. He waited for her to look at him again before continuing. “Yeah, little bit.”

“Alright, you wanna brace your elbow better then,” Gladio reasoned. He spread his hand against the steel. “Don’t make this easy for me.”

“Will I ever?” she asked, eyebrow raised as he smiled and pushed against the shield.

“Nah.”

He watched muscles tense, and the rotation of her arm change as he pressed the shield all the way back to her shoulder.

“Push away,” Gladio prompted. The shield steadily forced his hand away, arm fluid as it stretched back out. Tone revealed the bunched strength of her arms. “Woah, hang on a second.”

She gave him a curious look, almost troubled, as she watched her own limb hold the heavy steel still. “What?”

“Nah, just, welcome to the gun show,” he said, mapping the lines of her arm and shoulder. Rena shook her head and gave a tired sigh through a smile. He leant closer, flexing his own arm alongside hers.

“Yeah, I think you win.”

“It’s proportional.”

“Is it?” she asked, the fun glint showing in dark eyes. There was a keenness to her expression, he’d learnt it and knew it meant play. A momentary glance down to his crotch and immediately back to his face confirmed her meaning.

“You can find out whenever you want,” he smirked.

“At _work?_ Oof, here’s me thinking I’m the bad one,” Rena said. He fought a wider grin.

“You ain’t exactly innocent.”

“Can’t argue with that, now can I?” she asked, half mocking but still with that game expression that made him smile fondly. “But on a cold day? Won’t be doing yourself any favours.”

Gladio snorted and went back to his observations. “ _Anyway._ Don’t let it push all the way,” he said, pressing on the steel again. “You want to be upping your resistance _here_ , or else it can shove all the way back and dislocate your elbow.”

“Right,” she noted, providing the force he tutored as he continued to force the shield closer.

Both were barely at half strength. They were playing and knew to keep their spars in the narrow overlap of challenging and safe. Technique required a slower repetition. Until the basics were laid in good groundwork, it would be a careful run through of a sequence or nuance that gradually sped up before being introduced into the faster practices.

He maintained his force and gave her the nod to push again. Gladio watched carefully before providing enough resistance to stop her. Fast eyes found the issue. Beyond the palely scarred stretch of her forearm, and the various bruises she wore as easily as she gained them, he ducked lightly to check the rotation of her arm.

“Strain here?” he asked, tapping twice on a spot just above the back of her elbow.

Her entire arm tensed briefly before relaxing again, as much as it could with a shield the weight of an infant at the end of it. Again, he glanced up at her face. His own thick brows formed a gentle frown as his touches were warded off once again.

_It’s just the room; she’s in fight mode._

_She’s uncomfortable. Stop touching her._

He’d noticed it before. It wasn’t just him, either. Prompto had quickly learned that his usual arm-slinging, shoulder-squeezing mannerisms were met with the sharp tensing of muscle and occasionally silencing her mid-sentence. Contact with Ignis had been expected; she was the one that had asked for help and would be damned if she allowed a simple aversion to stand in the way. Noctis was similar to her in that respect. Those he knew well were free to touch him. If he were tired, mentally or physically, the close presence of another could earn a sharp flinch, wide eyes or even a glare. The key was in reading him.

Reading Rena was nigh on impossible, without her input. She decided what she showed. Often, it was nothing, or very little. She was beginning to come through, brief and quiet like sunlight through a leafy canopy. A sudden shift in the breeze and she’d hide again, and she _was_ hiding.

It wasn’t that there was nothing there, he knew that. He’d seen it. It had taken a few days for the fogged memory to return and show her expression, each recalling giving him a few moments more. He’d made it all the way to the loud crack, like a stone thrown into a canyon, of her knee against his head before it blurred again.

She was there, but she was careful of what she showed. Hiding in plain sight was a gift of hers.

“Little bit.”

“Careful how it twists when you’re pushing out. You do that too fast, or too hard, and you’ll pop your shoulder,” he warned gently. He gingerly rotated her arm, wary of touching skin that seemed to find him burning. “Ever done that before?”

“No,” she said gently, watching him from a borderline nostalgic smile.

“It sucks.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. It’s not when it comes out- that doesn’t really hurt. It just feels… _wrong._ Getting it put back _in_ ,” he cocked his head, only to shake it. “Hurts like a bitch.”

Gladio rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the memory of one very painful afternoon. He’d trained with Cor before, but landing directly on his shoulder while trying to throw his sword had hauled the joint from the socket. Even after painkillers in the infirmary, the stretch of soft tissues being pulled in the wrong direction had made him grit his teeth and shout into his good shoulder. Watching had made it worse. The sickening clunk of realignment hadn’t alleviated all of the pain. He was left with a dull ache that lasted for days. Potions could do nothing for dislocations, after all. If the bone was broken, they could fix it. Moving it back into place was something that still needed done by hand.

“Keep that one off your bucket list.”

“It’s more of a _fuck-it_ list, to be honest,” she said, tightening her bun before turning the sword in her hand.

Gladio circled away briefly and summoned his sword. His slow movements were telling. Even a fraction slower than his usual speed and she knew he was planning something. There was an artificial edge to his gait. The easy sway of him was gone until he was borderline stiff when he moved.

He could still cut through thin air at a dangerous speed.

The loud clang of sword against shield echoed through the hall.

“Speaking of plans,” he began, expression shifted back to a mild smile. Rena tilted her head with a frown and pushed against the sword. Gladio caught the smile, even as she wore reluctance.

“Really? Right now?”

“Don’t see why not,” he shrugged. He coughed lightly in his throat before striking again, this time meeting nothing as she dodged right, and bumped his elbow with the shield.

“I thought it’d be good if we-.”

The heavy door handle of the training hall turned. Wood creaked.

“Afternoon,” was provided as a careful, calculating drawl.

“Hi.”

“Hey Iggy.”

“Everything alright?” he asked, pacing to the side of the hallway as he glanced at the pair. At least they were looking at each other again.

Gladio shoved harder against the shield, smile hidden behind as impassive an expression as he could manage. The same process came naturally to her. She slipped back into hiding as quickly as she’d left it.

“Yep,” Gladio provided flatly.

Swaying in stance, Rena dropped the shield back into the armiger with a quick fizz of blue ashes, before blocking a strike from above that threatened to cut into her shoulder.

He put more force into it, perfectly aware of both of their capabilities. They stilled. The momentary stalemate was interrupted by the door, once again. A silent agreement allowed them to look away.

Noctis slipped into the room, shouldering against the half of the door that was bolted still at floor and ceiling. He groaned quietly and scratched the back of his head.

“Somebody miss their morning session?” she asked, more to the others. Steel rang as the blades slipped across each other, settling back into crossed formation as he blocked his flank from biting metal.

“Nah, he made it. _Just.”_

Ignis shook his head as he folded the sleeves of a training t-shirt up to his elbows, exposing supple forearms. “One half session does _not_ a day’s training make. Although, I’ll be the first to admit that meeting was dreadful. If I hear anything more on financial diversion, I’ll lose the plot.”

“Already lost it,” Gladio muttered.

“Say something, Gladio?” he asked, despite being well aware. Ignis was momentarily distracted when Noctis plodded straight into one of the walls.

“Nothing.”

“He said you’d-,” she began, interrupted by a sharp strike and the singing of metal. The two shared keen frowns before hiding them away again. “joined the club.”

“Yes, well,” Ignis sighed heavily. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“You still weaning off?” Rena asked.

They were still, blades held inches from the other’s neck as they reined in their breathing. Dampened by the sweat of an hour’s sparring, and longer physical training sessions before that, they were warm against the cool, still air of the room. Autumn had faded for winter and simultaneously brightened with fresh change. The crispness in the air stole some of the city’s silt from it. It could be taken in full breaths, cleaned simply by being cold, and carried the sweet salt of the eastern sea.

The cooler times made for warmer moments.

The brief hint of a smile played at Gladio’s lips before they pushed the blades against each other, forcing themselves apart as the weapons cut the air between them. Fizzing blue cast them away. Rena made for her rucksack, already loosening the bindings on her hands and gathering them in her palms. Gladio paced to his own holdall, at the opposite end of the bench. Ignis stood in the middle, shouldering out of a zip hoodie and folding it. He glanced between the two of them.

“Afraid so. Four yesterday, and so far, today’s needed three.”

“Not looking good,” Gladio remarked, briefly looking at him with the beginnings of a frown.

“Ah, he’ll make it. He might kill somebody, but at least he’ll be making progress.”

“Iggy?” Noctis asked, half muffled by the hoodie he was wrestling out of. Once the waistband was over his arms and the raven-haired head popped free of warm fabric, he blinked slowly. “You got any eb- _mmmppfff?!_ ”

“Shh!” Rena hushed. Gladio was already behind him, a hand over his mouth as sapphire eyes turned into saucers and his protests drowned in a palm. “Don’t set him back.”

“If anyone was going to hinder this, frankly torturous, process, it’d be him,” Ignis announced from the centre of the room, lance in hand as he balanced and stretched with the weight of it.

“You heard ‘em,” Gladio said, leaning to the side to look at his captive. Noctis had finished squirming and was now keeping busy glaring at him. “Awake yet?”

With the tanned hand still firmly clamped over his mouth, and only just startled into full consciousness, Noct acted on the first escape plan. He stuck his tongue flat against Gladio’s palm. He simply raised an eyebrow in return and spoke in an almost disappointed tone.

“Really? That the best you can do? Even Iris used to bite.”

Noctis growled and burst into a flash of blue.

He reappeared at Ignis’ side, one hand on the lance before letting it go and summoning his sword. Before he could supply his retort, the lance cut through the air, taking aim to stab forwards. Noct defended, still sluggish. Ignis kept the spar at a pace that allowed no distractions, however momentary.

The other two, having turned over their shoulders to watch, shared a short glance before turning back to their bags.

“I don’t blame her!” Noct blurted in a pause, quickly warping out of the way of Ignis’ borderline demented attacks. He was quick, constant and frighteningly accurate. “I’d bite you too if-.”

“You had the chance,” Gladio called back into the room, fishing his locker key from the depths of the bag.

“Maybe he just brushed his teeth,” Rena suggested.

“He hasn’t,” Ignis informed flatly, shoving Noctis away from a parry.

Both snorted quietly.

Rena stood up and tied the flannel shirt around her waist. She shook her head and frowned. “That’s disgusting.”

“You’re telling me,” Gladio made a face of mild disgust as he wiped his hand on his trouser leg. “Got morning breath on my hand.”

“Oh, I get it. You two are only gonna get along when you bully me. Okay, great!” Noctis ranted quietly as his strikes sped up.

“We’re not bullying you.”

“We’re making sure you keep your feet on the ground,” Gladio raised his brows, watching as Noctis warped behind Ignis and spun. They began to walk from the room, purposefully walking along opposing walls towards the door. “Keep an eye on your-.”

“Elbow! Yeah, I _know!_ ”

“I would’ve said attitude,” she muttered as she reached the door. Rena opened it before Gladio could offer argument.

“Got a point there.”

“Stop backing him up!” he yelled. “You guys are just _mean_!”

The crack in his voice broke even Rena’s poker face. Gladio let out a bark of laughter as he took a high part of the door in his hand and jerked his head to prompt her through. Noctis let out an irked groan before the door closed on the sounds of a heating spar. Both shaking their heads, they walked down the quiet corridor.

Rena sighed through a smile. “We’re horrible to him.”

“Nah, part of the job,” Gladio assured with a satisfied grin. “ _My_ job, anyway. You just do it for fun.”

“He always bites! It’s too easy. At least you and Iggy make it a game,” she said with a gesture that broke her hands free of their usual play in front of her and let them fall loose at her sides. Gladio’s hand stretched out, ready to clasp with hers. He stopped himself.

Instead of blindly holding his hand out and allowed the chance of motion for it to meet hers, he bent his elbow and offered his palm, watching her carefully.

Sharp eyes were quick to catch on the outstretched hand. She glanced around the upcoming corner.

“I would, but it’s covered in spit,” she explained gently, turning into the next corridor before glancing at him.

“Royal spit.”

“Still spit,” Rena nodded. The calm smile on him faded a little as thick brows drew into a frown.

“You okay? You’re kinda jumpy today.”

His frown was matched by her own. “Yeah, I’m fine. Kinda jumpy every day. It’s just a thing.”

“A thing?” he raised knitted brows, glancing briefly ahead at a silhouette walking down the hallway.

He paused by the door to a locker room, earthen eyes only leaving hers momentarily as she gathered her hands in front of herself, fingers automatically playing a game of habit. Tall and quiet in the dim hallway, she couldn’t help but think he belonged here and simultaneously didn’t. The dark wooden floors and panelling halfway up the walls sharply changed to smooth parchment plaster. Arcane shields and crossed swords, half a dozen other weapon types, rested on the walls; a quiet reminder of the older halls they’d left behind; a history that refused to be forgotten, much like his own. Even the soft light of the sconces, warm but bright, just made his eyes burn gently.

Rena opened her mouth to begin an explanation, only to close it again to gather and concise her thoughts. He was waiting, and patiently so. Gods knew he was patient. When she did speak, he clung to every quiet word.

“It’s just… new.”

She could see him taking it in. Amber eyes wrote apologies, hardened momentarily as he chastised himself, before softening back to understanding, almost relief. A spark lingered; curiosity.

“New?”

“New. Not bad, just new,” she assured.

Gladio was rifling through his thoughts, gathering them into assessments, plans and backup plans. It had been ingrained in him; always find a way. It was just one of the many things his role required that spilled over into his life. Most of the guiding principles could be applied to the everyday in some way. Knowing when to do it was a more nuanced art.

But she wasn’t closing herself in. Rena was watching with evening-dark eyes, almost soft as she watched him. There was a looseness to her shoulders, a steady calm as she swayed from side to side, feet anchoring her to the floor as she kept moving with an ebb and flow she never let go of. Something was always moving, no matter how minimally, if only to mark her presence and consciousness of it.

“Alright?”

“Yeah. Are you?” Gladio asked as he raised his brows. He watched carefully.

“Yeah,” she nodded.

She may not have showed him much, but she wasn’t hiding anything.

“Okay,” he sighed, pressing his hand against the door. “See you for lunch?”

“Mess?”

“Mess.”

“Alright, I’ll try to keep you a seat but no promises,” she said. Rena began to walk backwards, listening behind her as he held her gaze. He pushed the door open and smiled gently.

“See you there, babe.”

For all her control, the light cringe that flashed across her face made his eyes widen slightly. He frowned, somewhat contorted by his own twisting feeling.

“No?”

The quiet groan that barely left a closed mouth as she shook her head told him enough. She knitted into a frown and shook her head again, more at herself.

“I don’t know, but just- yeah,” she said, stopping herself before she could talk herself into a circle.

“Okay,” he nodded, rough voice softened in the quiet of the corridor. “I’ll see you there.”

“Ah, yeah. Yep. I’ll- ah, fuck it.”

Gladio chuckled as she fought the gritted teeth from her expression, turned and walked down the hallway.

She smiled at the few warm beats of laughter before the door closed. Rena was still being tensed by a cringe, more so at her reaction than his choice of words. He’d looked happy, and the slightest break of her control had taken that from him. Filling her lungs, she strode through the hallways, to the locker room she’d used and hoping a hot shower would wash off the embarrassment and untie the knot in her gut enough for her to have an appetite.

“Hey, kid,” a merry lilt met her ears as she slipped through the door.

Castor was rubbing the back of his short, tawny blond hair with a towel, bare-chested and tanned as he opened his locker and rummaged around.

“Hey Cas, how you keeping?”

“Pretty damn good. Got moved off the split shifts,” he talked into the locker, before leaning back until his face was clear of the narrow gunmetal door, a victorious grin on his soft features.

“Oh, you bastard,” she peeked out of her own locker to frown at him.

He shrugged and eyed the ceiling innocently. “You still on ‘em?”

“Yep.”

“Oof. Tough gig.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” she said, pinning fresh clothes between her knees as she swung the rucksack into the locker and untied the flannel, balling it up and leaving it there. Rena plucked her small toiletry bag from the high shelf and took a hold of her clothes. She pushed the locker shut with her knee as Castor approached, his usual easy gait steady as he fought into a training t-shirt.

“Uh huh, _sure_ ,” he raised his eyebrows. The deadpan look was enough to coax a laugh from the permanently cheery man. “Y’know, I kinda miss being stuck on shifts with you.”

“Likewise,” she said. “How’s the family?”

“Oh, wait till you see this,” he grinned, darting to his locker and back, phone in hand. “Check that out.”

His cat, Nashira, was on her back, white fluffy belly exposed as she lay across Fletch’s neck. Castor was pressing a kiss to his grinning cheek, caramel lashes closed in bliss as Fletch’s dark almond eyes creased, black hair falling wispy across the pillow and his soft profile. It was a snapshot of intimacy, of the softer moments craved by those in a job with demands such as theirs. Fletch had been discharged on injury six months before and was debating whether or not to come back. Castor was smitten with him, even after years together.

“That’s sweet,” she said quietly, before deadpanning again. “How much alcohol did you ply him with?”

He gasped in mock offence. “None! I didn’t bribe him in any-.”

“What did you wear?” she asked, as if she already knew the answer to the question. Castor pursed his lips to fight the smile, even as it creased his eyes.

“…Red.”

“Slut.”

“Prude.”

“Then we’re even,” she laughed, turning the key and heading for the showers.

“Oh no we’re not! I ain’t done till you’ve got yourself a special somebody,” he called, pulling the rest of his uniform on. “What’re you looking for? I’ve got a couple single friends, some of ‘em might be your type!”

“Don’t have a type!” she called over the torrent of warm water, locking herself into a cubicle and stripping off.

“Everybody has a type! They just haven’t found it yet!”

“And I’m not looking! Can’t be bothered with all that crap.”

“What a load of shit!”

“You’re gonna be late, Cas!”

“No I’m no- oh shit.”

“Yep, there it is,” she muttered quietly. “See you later!”

“See ya! Wouldn’t wanna be ya!”

“Get the fuck out, Cas!”

“Yes, ma’am!” he yelled

“Fuck off!” Rena laughed, keeping her head clear of the stream of water.

The door closed after Castor’s merry cackle. She washed quickly, soaking with honey scented shower gel and suds before rinsing it off with the warm ache of a morning’s shift and training. Hot water pelted the back of her neck. Each second in warm steam pressed her down and made her limbs heavier. It made her long for bed. For quiet and dim surroundings; not the clamour of the mess, the bright lighting and _people._

Some sick sense made her do it. Some determined flash of recklessness made her reach out, grab the dial, and turn it left.

Freezing water threw razors at her back, so instantaneous it left the skin sparking, even after she shut the water off and bit back a curse.

Dried and dressed, she shouldered the rucksack once more and made for the mess hall. Down in the belly of the building, the room had lower ceilings than the training halls and ran alongside the back of headquarters, facing onto the courtyard. The oak and beech leaves had soured dry and fallen in a mottled, rusty blanket over the grass and cobbled pathways. One side of the hall was large, glass windows. Black tables of varying sizes, all with simple, minimalist wooden chairs filled the space between the outdoors and the canteen side that reminded them of where they were.

Even as a blend of scents curled in the air, her appetite didn’t stir. It hadn’t for the past week. Something, though she couldn’t pin it down, had exhausted it. The room was half full, the grey clouds of guards gathered at tables as they ate, laughed, played, even studied.

Rena kept her headphones in, playing music loud enough to dull the sharp sounds of cutlery against crockery, cushioning her from the louder bursts of laughter as jokes and quips made groups throw their heads back or pound their fists on the table. In truth, it was nowhere near as bad as some of the hunter’s gatherings, but it was enough. She got all the way to the open edge of the counter, subtly chewing her cheeks the entire time, before tucking a headphone into her top and mentally revising her order.

She was relieved by a familiar face. Fletch spread into a wide grin. “Same as always?”

“Please,” she nodded.

“You sure? The soup’s real good today, made it myself,” he tilted his head, dark hair gathered into a sleek bun at the back of his head as he offered with wide, inky eyes.

“I’m sure.”

“Alrighty then, give us a sec,” Fletch smiled. He turned over his shoulder to a redhead. “Four shot latte, Nero.”

“On it.”

“Hey.”

Rena’s head turned to the familiar voice. Gladio gave a smile as he tapped a tune onto his tray.

“Hey.”

“You made good time,” he narrowed his eyes and glanced at his watch.

“Yeah…?” Rena trailed, swaying on her feet, partially deafened to the hiss of the milk frother. A light tap put the coffee down on the counter. She scooped it up glanced at Fletch and Nero. “Cheers, guys.”

“You not gonna eat?” he asked, soft frown drawn onto features that usually held a calm contentedness.

“Nah, not hungry.”

“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”

“I’m especially not-hungry today, so I’m gonna go get a seat, alright?” she cocked her head. Gladio shook his head with a smile as she walked away.

After getting the final additions to what was a regularly hefty lunch, he swept the room and snagged on a head of curls. A brief glance behind him when he gathered cutlery revealed the debut of a shock of blond and a hood at its side.

_Five minutes. You’ve got five, tops._

Hands full, he jutted his chin at Prompto and Noctis, and turned on his heels.

When he set himself down at the table, sitting across from her and mindfully keeping his legs tucked as much as he could, she was blowing on the coffee as she glanced up from her phone. Rena tucked it, and her headphones, away. She’d found a prize table; in the corner, but next to the window. Backed into the corner and able to see the entire room, she was able to diffuse by a thread. Sipping the hot, strong coffee helped. Bitterness and the smooth texture of milk grounded her. As did the mellow eyes across the table.

“So,” he began, quickly chewing a tomato and speaking after he swallowed. “I was thinking dinner tomorrow?”

“I’m paying this time,” she said flatly, purposefully timing it for when he took a bite of his sandwich. The frown only made her smirk as she took another mouthful of coffee. He widened his eyes at her, muffling a protest through a closed mouth before swallowing thickly and too soon.

“No way.”

“Then I’m not going,” she shrugged. The drop of his shoulders and the slightly open mouth of defeat under soft eyes made her think. He perked up slightly when she put down the coffee and spoke, the already smooth voice made more so by the drink.

“Idea.”

“Throw it at me.”

Rena opened her mouth to speak, only to spot Prompto and Noctis catch sight of them, Prompto’s grin uninhibited before he toned it down to a crooked smile. They were already approaching.

“Mine at eight? Bring a jacket. Still dinner,” she said, eyes locked on the pair as she spoke behind a coffee cup. Gladio nodded.

“You got it.”

* * *

“So, how d’you feel?”

She turned over her shoulder and rolled her eyes playfully. Rena’s tone was bright with sarcasm.

“Oh… Thoroughly _wooed,_ ” she nodded, making a face of false sincerity.

“Not sure I believe you,” Gladio said, his own sarcasm showing as he smiled through it. She shook her head and opened the door to the tenement. “Looks like I’m gonna have to try harder.”

“If at first you don’t succeed-.”

“Try, try again.”

“Quit while you’re ahead,” she said, stepping into the cool hall silently as he shut the autumn evening breeze out. “The ginger ale was a nice touch.”

“Thought you’d like it. Jared makes it every year.”

“We used to do this thing,” she began, peering up the stairs as she climbed them, her voice hushed but not whispered. “We’d mix ginger beer and whiskey. You could drink that stuff stone cold and it’d warm you up.”

“Sounds good,” he smiled. “I woulda picked mulled wine but there you go.”

“Mulled wine? Now you’re talking,” she glanced over her shoulder. Even in the dim light of an unlit stairway, he could see the keenness to her. “What spices do you guys use?”

“Ah, the usual. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger. Iggy uses vanilla, too. Dunno why it works but holy shit does it _work.”_

“Citrus peels?”

“Yep,” he replied, somewhat strained. Rena turned over her shoulder, to see him fighting back a sneeze. At the tightening across his nose, she spoke quickly.

“Peaches.”

A frown fell over him as the threatening sneeze vanished. “Peaches? Why peaches?”

“I was trying to stop you sneezing. It’s an old building,” she said, patting the wall. “Don’t want the old girl getting taken down by a sneeze.”

“Hey, it’d take the cat out.”

Rena snorted as they carried on up the stairs, finally reaching her door. She spoke so quietly Gladio had to stand closer to hear. “That’s bad.”

“You laughed,” he smirked victoriously.

She looked up from putting her key in the lock with a mild frown. Shaking her head, she turned back around and clicked the lock open. Nails tapped on the floorboards. She slipped inside, finding her way to the lamp while the dogs grumbled quietly, nudging at her hands in greeting. A soft click illuminated the paper moon and set its soft glow about the room. Rena shrugged out of her jacket and hung it up as the dogs gave Gladio their hellos, both tails, even Seyna’s, wagging in curled plumes. She ducked into the kitchen to empty her rucksack of the boxes she’d stowed the evening’s picnic in.

“If you were allergic to dogs…” she began, shaking her head to finish the sentence.

“Really?”

“Definitely,” she nodded.

Leant against the archway leading to the kitchen, Rena crossed her arms loosely across her front and watched as Ochre spun for Gladio, turning in circles, each ending in another inane statement. Seyna was at his side, leant against his leg as he rubbed the top of her head. Tiredness permitted a soft smile, and softer eyes. Gladio noticed the silence, looking up through thick lashes from his slightly hunched posture. He straightened up, all easy strength and bold features smoothed by the evening and a mildly doe-eyed expression. The summer’s gift of a tan had held on him. She could’ve sworn he glowed. It wasn’t a lunar ethereality, or even the blinding burn of the star.

It was the meeting at east and west, where the sun kissed the earth ‘farewell’ and ‘I’m home’. It was the beginning and end of days. He was dusk and dawn, a fiery twilight of red sunrises and burnished sets. He was the softening to allow change.

He broke into a smile, watching with gentle eyes. “Everything okay?”

_Caught._

“Yeah, just… tired, I think,” she excused, rubbing at her eyes.

Had the light been brighter, he’d have seen the faintest tinge of pink to her cheeks. What he could see was endearing. The haze around her hair as nomadic strands refused to conform to the already wild curls, the soft features allowed to be soft, and fond familiarity flashing onto them when Seyna padded over for attention.

The small moment was stopped when Rena took a quick inhale. She held her hand up, loosely pointing to the ceiling as a thought burst from her mind.

“Found something, I think you’ll like it. Just give me a second?”

“Yeah, course,” he nodded.

As she darted out and padded further into the apartment, Gladio made his way to the window. Her small touches were beginning to show all over the space. It may have been small, half the size of his annexe at most, but it was being worn in and made to fit her, slowly but surely. The place was one of half-finished ideas; scribbled notes and dogeared books, and of steadiness in the classic materials that furnished it. Brick, leather, wood, iron and brass were the basis. They were softened somewhat by flourishing herbs and a soft cream throw.

The street outside was dark. Each streetlamp did little to illuminate it. As much as she’d had to fix a multitude of issues after moving in, she had managed to secure a view of a nearby park, one they’d visited that evening. Gladio had no doubt the morning view was spectacular, all rusted leaves turned gold in the sunrise. But immediately outside, the street was a dark blue, one that almost tricked him into thinking his car was gone.

Ochre’s paws landed on the windowsill as the dog propped himself up, surveying the street. He pressed his nose to an intersection of the window and sniffed deeply. Gladio raised his brow at him, only to hear quiet footsteps given away by the ticking nails of another dog.

“So, I was digging around in this bookstore downtown- they do really good coffees, actually- and I found this,” she began, turning a book in her hand.

Gladio watched her sweep her hair out of her face, only for it to drop back to cover one of her eyes.

“Don’t know why it was in the non-fiction, but yeah. It’s not a Henruit, but when I looked it up there was something-,”

She tucked the hair away. It fell back.

“Saying it was by a guy who knew him? I ended up reading way into it, to be honest. Turns out they were each other’s muses-,”

The pale hand flew up, trying once again. Instead of the single curl, a few swung back down, effectively covering half her face. Gladio’s finger twitched.

“Which put them in a shitpile, that’s why they started using the pseudonyms, and-,”

“You mind if I...?” he asked, hand held up in a quiet gesture.

“Course not,” she said, still rifling through the pages to find the one she had in mind. “Basically, I thought you might-.”

Gladio closed the gap with one step. He guided the honey scented curls away with two fingers and leant down to press a light kiss to her cheek, just under the scar. For a moment, he was lost in the warmth of being close, in the smell of honey and ginger, and pine she’d never be able to scrub from her skin. He withdrew gracefully, simply shifting back onto the foot that was further away.

She stopped dead. Gladio tried to read her. It wasn’t that she wasn’t showing him anything, or that he wasn’t understanding. In this moment, her mind was emptied. That labyrinth had been flooded and its echoes quietened. He swore he could still feel the softness of her skin on his lips as her own fell open. Dark eyes were widened and staring at some fixed point. The only part of her that proved she wasn’t some statue, frozen into shocked stone, was the silent motion of her breathing as it stayed steady.

When she looked at him, Gladio felt a twist in his gut.

“Oh shit…”

She held up the book and swivelled it loosely in her hand.

“Thought you meant… the…”

Rena’s voice was barely above a whisper, smoothness turned hoarse by the lack of strength she usually gave her speech. In truth, she could barely feel anything. There was nothing but a fizzing, the sudden burst of scent from a bloomed bud, heady and new. It felt as though the burning blue ashes of the armiger were lining her. Sounds were muffled. She could see, but barely saw anything.

When she forced herself to focus, his mouth was open, readying an apology as dark brows knitted softly.

“Sorry. Shit, I’m sorry,” he shook his head, soft eyes frantically searching her, almost unable to look her in the eye. He forced himself to. “Rena, I’m really-.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“What?”

“It’s fine. It’s done now so… yeah… I’m uhh… Dogs. Dogs need out.”

She handed him the book and remained somewhat distracted as she quickly leashed the dogs and left him in the apartment. As she made out onto the street, the cold air wrapped around her, the only sounds being the dogs sniffing at bare hedges and the distant thrum of the city centre’s traffic. Her cheeks burned, but one spot in particular. Rena was sure she was glowing bright pink in the dark, possibly brighter than the streetlights.

_Stop fucking overreacting._

After almost ten minutes, she braved her own home. The dogs came in first. Rena hid under her hair as she unleashed them and darted into the kitchen to fill up their water bowl. One deep breath later, she slipped back into the living room.

“So yeah, I think you’ll enjoy it,” she said quickly, much faster than her usual talking speed. Gladio was standing in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do with himself as she folded her arms loosely and watched him in the snapshots allowed by momentary glances.

“I’m sorry, I should’ve asked.”

“You kinda did, I think. I just… didn’t know that was what you were asking.”

Gladio bit the inside of his lip, brows knitted. He kept casting his eyes to the floor, too ashamed to look her in the eye for any length of time. On one of his checks, he looked at her cheek again. The stronger bloom of a pink rose was under her skin, running deep and putting heat into her face. The sight of that, in combination with her widened eyes and inability to hide this, made him smile. He tried his best to fight it away, minimising what would’ve been a beaming grin to a softer smile. Heat even began to rise in his own cheeks.

“Still, I’m… I’m sorry. Should’ve been more specific.”

Rena locked on him and held his gaze with a little more of the intensity and keenness he was used to.

“It’s alright. It’s completely fine and all and… and… fuck,” she cursed softly. When a smile broke out on her face, Gladio allowed himself the full grin.

The pair watched each other in almost breathless silence for a moment, each feeling different about the same thing. Both had cycled through excitement, fear, and disbelief. Gladio’s eyes stayed on hers, only straying to her cheeks to see the blush hold its colour. Each time he glimpsed that shade of pink, it made his smile more tireless. As his eyes began to roam further, falling to her lips, he mapped the lines of them.

_You’ve done enough for one night, give her a break. Don’t do anything stupid._

“I should… probably get going,” he nodded, fixing on her eyes again. They were still wide enough to give him words. He could make out the letters, but whether it translated to ‘yes’ or ‘no’, he had no idea.

“Alright,” she said hoarsely, swallowing to smooth her voice again. “Give that a try, if you get the time,” she gestured to the book before pulling her hands back to play habit with them.

“Yeah, I will. Running out of good books.”

“No promises it’s any good,” she laughed quietly.

Rena followed as he made for the door, still fighting down the pink in her cheeks and the fizzing in her gut. It was almost a twisting. As if something was curling up, continually resettling before sitting still and heavy.

“You picked it, it must be okay. Your standards are pretty damn high,” he said, stepping into the hallway.

“Yeah, but that was a weird one. Not the type I usually go for.”

“Eh, we all have changing tastes,” he mused, standing clear of the door as she leant against the frame, the dogs peeking out around her legs.

Rena chuckled quietly at the ground before looking back up at him, first through her lashes and then lifting her face. A genuine smile cast freely over her features, before she pressed it back to a more controlled version.

“Yeah, I guess we do.”

* * *

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck.”_

Rena was clucking as she dashed around the small apartment, putting her free hand against the walls to stop herself from crashing into them, and frantically gathering her things. Of what little she did take to work, one crucial element was missing.

Her phone.

The entire previous evening was blur, mainly in a bright shade of pink that still made her grit her teeth and cringe. Her own reaction was weighing heavier than his one, small act. The more she thought about it, the more she could feel it again. Soft, ever so slightly chapped lips brushed quick and sweet, passing warmth into her cheek.

She darted into the bathroom, muttering another expletive as Ochre threw himself under her feet. Rena dodged the dog and searched. The bath, window, sink, it was all clear. The mess in the fogged mirror caught her attention. Enough condensation had cleared that she could see her reflection, and the pink that seemed to be making itself at home on her cheeks. A rough groan left her as she threw herself out of the room.

The kitchen seemed unlikely, and she’d already searched it once, but that was the usual spot when things went missing. Seyna had a lovely habit of picking up stray items and hiding them in the washing machine. Useful when it came to socks, infuriating when it came to keys, phones, and anything else mildly electrical. Rena ducked and turned the drum in the machine. Nothing. Muttering darkly, she scanned the surfaces.

“Oh, for fuck’s-.”

The short, bright, looping whistle of a text cut through the quiet. She’d narrowed it down to the living room. Rena stood in the centre of the room, waiting for another to come through, or the original to announce itself again as her eyes cut the surroundings to excise the location of the phone.

It came again. Left.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

The phone was resting on the windowsill, partially hidden by a plant pot but otherwise in plain view. Growling low enough in her throat for the dogs to cease wagging their tails, she picked it up and read the text.

_Knock knock._

“Not right now,” she groaned.

Rena fought into her jacket, shouldered her rucksack and peeked to check the dogs had enough water. Phone gripped in her hand, she stuffed it into her pocket and wrenched the door open. She stepped out and had to stop herself from shutting the door on Ochre’s muzzle. He poked his large, black nose out of the opening and sniffed heavily.

“C’mon, move. I’ll see you later.”

A low grumble left the dog as he pushed his paw out of the door, trying to grab whatever it was, she didn’t care.

“Ochre,” she said, firmer. “In.”

He whined and retreated, still focused intently on something.

“Right, be good. Both of you,” she said quietly, able to close and lock the door at last.

She tested the door to make sure it had locked properly, shouldering against it. Then it caught her eye. The black lid on a brown paper cup, sitting next to a small white paper bag. Half expecting it to be the guy from upstairs’ drunken littering, she crouched down and picked them up. The cup was heavy. Warm. So was the bag. There was a note stapled to it, folded to conceal the cursive script softened by a marker pen.

_Morning, - G._

As much as she gave a tired sigh, there was a smile on her face. Rena shook her head and remembered the time. She darted down the stairs, careful not to spill the coffee or shake the bag too much. It was almost rattling. At her first sip, the warm drink went down easy with a bitterness only four shots of coffee and no sugar could give.

He’d been listening.

She was at the edge of the city centre, headphones deafening her to the growing bustle with this morning’s acoustics, when she finished the coffee and dropped the cup in a bin as she passed. Then came whatever was in the bag. There were three. One was a small rose of pastry and apple, full of the scent of spice and the perfect size to fit in her palm. The other was a twisted knot of softer, less flaky pastry, woody and sweet in aroma. With all the winter spice perfuming the bag, they were mouth-watering without even being warm.

The third and final item, was a small bag. She plucked it out to get a better view as she waited for the lights to change. Bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, she turned the bag over. Mixed nuts, honey roasted. The marker had been taken across the packaging. Right next to the word ‘nuts’, Gladio’s handwriting had been warped slightly by the flexible surface to write ‘about you’.

Conscious of the other pedestrians around her, she permitted a small smile before shaking her head and clearing her throat. Rena may have been blushing, or it may have been the cold morning air.

~*~

“Did you like it?”

She didn’t need to look up to know his eyebrow was raised, his bright eyes were holding that lively spark, and that he’d have a smile fixed on strong features.

“Yeah,” Rena nodded. She glanced up from her coffee and sure enough, that smile widened to a grin. “But don’t make it a habit, I’d already had breakfast.”

“You never have lunch,” he returned calmly, presenting the fact as his end of the argument.

“Because I have a big breakfast,” she protested, voice getting ever so slightly louder.

He took a quick scan of her. Shoulders up, features held soft, and brows gathered in a frown, yet she was relaxing. Gladio shook his head and continued to tap his feet on the floor silently. The mess hall was busy. Anyone without a seat was standing, and the other three chairs at their table, the same she’d nabbed the other day, had since been asked and spoken for. He watched the courtyard, feeling cold just looking at it. A seemingly gentle breeze was ripping leaves from the trees, sinking them in a fiery downpour.

Her leg was moving. Sat next to her, only just having been saved a seat, Gladio quietly watched as her leg bobbed. It wasn’t the rapid, nervous rhythm Prompto seemed to do whenever he sat down. It was irregular, moving to whatever what playing through the headphone she kept in the ear further away from him.

He continued to read, keen to finish his current subject before moving into the book she’d given him. The lyrical prose was striking. Observations of change and that it is the only thing that truly remains the same, questions asked of gods and men, and the fundamental acceptance that mortality does not mean the end were swirling in his mind.

A loud cheer came from the centre of the mess. Both flicked their eyes up. Arm wrestling competitions had begun. It was Thursday, after all. Thursdays were always arm-wrestling days. Better than mooning Monday, when a tighter belt than usual was advised.

Gladio turned the page, silently tapping on the paper as the stamped letters made their tracks in his mind. It was when he moved onto a new paragraph that he noticed her own forearm on the table, stretched out and fingers playing some soundless melody. The scars across her outer arm, all the way from wrist to elbow where the red of the flannel began, were silvery and faded, interspersed with occasional freckles.

She nudged him with her knuckle. It was light, but it was all her. Gladio looked up from the book.

“You done? You gonna turn the page or…?” she asked quietly, silencing herself with another mouthful of coffee. A warm smile pressed at his mouth.

“Gimme a second. Got distracted.”

“Sorry.”

Even in the thrum of the hall, and the infrequent cheering from the larger tables joined together to form the centre of today’s competition, they could hear each other’s hushed voices. They spoke loud enough for the other to hear, and no more. His rougher timbre came soft, like damp sand and freshly turned earth. His was the crackle of a fire, the low burn of wood itself. Rena’s was the smooth combination of smaller hoarseness, of leaves shaken by the wind to form a single note, like a bow and string.

He reached the end of the page and swept the room as he turned it. Content that there were no prying eyes, and that they were quiet enough to avoid detection, he lay his hand flat on the table, palm up. He left it there; a quiet offering.

“Here.”

Gladio pulled his eyes from the page. She finished wiping a headphone on a napkin and held it out.

“Depends. What’re you listening to?” he toyed, features held in a warm focus.

“Find out,” she said, barely audible even during a quiet lull.

Gladio put the headphone in and heard silence. Then the first few strings swept him west, into the outer regions, into the country, warm cello that reminded him of her voice as a notes sparked like fireflies. The music hid him in the woods, the mountains. Hid him in the quiet.

She rested her forearm on the table again. As he continued to read, knowing she was reading with him, he absently ran the back of his finger against the edge of her hand. Rena stayed still, and then her hand moved away. A shadow of the twisting his gut had taken after he’d kissed her turned uncomfortably in him, killing his appetite mid-meal.

His skin was warm. Rena slipped her arm behind his and onto the table, pressing against the smooth, supple tan with her own. He held his hand open as her wrist met his. A pale, loose fist was in his palm. He couldn’t focus on the page anymore and she knew it.

It was a small urge, barely a scent on the wind, but it was enough for her to follow. Curiosity, in combination with stubbornness, was a powerful trait. They were joined in their own innocent way. Sharing their senses. The same music, the same prose, pulses weak in their wrists and chasing each other.

In one calm movement, her fingers laced between his, thumb stroking the side of his knuckle. He returned with his own gentle squeeze. Hands warm, and rough in different places. Her scarred knuckles were met by his callouses and papercuts. They were both worn in their own ways, marked by their lives up till now.

Till now.

Now was warm, even though it was cold outside. Everything was warm. The faintest tapping of rain on the large windows played alongside warm acoustics, instruments that remembered the wood they came from and what those trees had seen. The colour of the page remembered too, what its own tree had witnessed before the ink had marked the warm off-white. The smell of coffee, and honey and leather. The smell of heat, of a smokeless fire, came from him while the bold scent of pine left her skin. Gladio was warm, in her hand, against her arm, against her side as they leant closer.

He waited for a lull in the lyrics to turn to her and speak.

“Wanna go hiking this weekend? If Noct has Blondie round, they won’t leave the apartment. We couldn’t go far, but we could get out. What d’you say?”

After the wispy lyrics, soft and light as pale smoke left, Rena replied.

“I say hell yeah.”

They left the book alone for a moment, Gladio still holding the page with his right hand as his left was confused. He was learning her hand in his, but it was almost like he didn’t have to, as if it had always been there. Dark eyes were watching softly, transfixed by the fire in his.

Fire could burn forests to the ground, but they always rose again, fed by their own ashes in determination to live again. Thick brush, like scars on a landscape, needed to be burnt back to make way for new growth. It was a cleansing. Both fed each other, in different ways. Fire would die without fuel, and forests would rot without change.

Gladio’s gaze fell to her lips, almost black lashes showing their length as they shrouded the braziers of his eyes. Rena’s eyes made her decision for her, finding his mouth. Soft lips surrounded by rough stubble. It was him in a nutshell. The coarse outer side, mainly present for aesthetic and protection, around the gentler self; around a soul of petals and poetry.

She gently pushed her shoulder against him when his lips parted. He smiled and turned back to the book. Gladio read words about gods and men, while the lyrics told him another story. Something about wings. About flying away.

* * *

It was the sound that always made his heart rage against his chest.

Blood was pounding in his head before he even opened his eyes. The incessant screeching of the alarm could’ve roused him from the grave, let alone his bed. Heavy limbs were thrown from the sheets, clothes hauled on, and a single door locked behind him.

Gladio’s breath plumed in the garden. He sprinted to the main house, boots crunching in the gravel as it was thrown behind him. The heavier door closed with a sinking weight. Gladio could feel it clinging to him; clinging to life. It was pulling on his arms like a child, guiding him to the horrors of another. It hung in his gut like guilt he was yet to earn. It was heaviest around his neck, draped and dying in his arms as he did what he could.

_Shields can’t fail._

Clarus threw himself into the car and belted in. Barely able to think for the gripping fear, Gladio started the engine and was already on the road when he asked his breathless question.

“What happened?”

“No idea. Cor’s sending intel as soon as things take a pause.”

 _What if they don’t?_ Gladio chewed the empty road behind him. “They got guards in?”

“A few, and four Glaives that were on night duty anyway,” he replied.

They fell silent, each feeling the same weight. It was one Clarus was far more practiced at counterbalancing than Gladio. Experience had made it so, and his son was still young. He’d been lucky that, in this day and age, there hadn’t been more moves made towards Noctis. Regis had seen his fair share of attempts made on him, but it still put a terror in Clarus. The bond had only strengthened with age, and he was bound by far more than an archaic blood oath. The same went for Gladio.

The small hours had rendered the centre of the city quiet, but not empty. Gladio broke the speed limit and overtook any in his path, throwing the indicator on and biting through the gears as he scrambled for the Citadel.

The silence was too heavy. It was too thick and unbearable, Clarus could barely stand it and knew Gladio could hardly breathe. He glanced across at his son. Sharp eyes were burning, cutting through his surroundings as he raced an opponent that had already crossed the line. Tanned knuckles were white, one hand on the wheel, the other on the gearstick. He was tensed solid, broken from the softness of sleep and dragged back into the harshest aspects of his reality.

“Gladio.”

He swallowed and kept his eyes fixed on the road, head tilted towards to listen. Clarus used the silence to gather his son’s attention as the road to the Citadel came straight and clear.

When those amber eyes met him, dark and desperately trying to harden, Clarus felt it hit him deep in the chest. He was still his boy; he always would be. It was rarer for Gladio to have childlike moments that threw Clarus back in time than it was for Iris, but it happened. Moments when fear sparked from him, even as he burned strong and bright with all the guarding nature he’d been conditioned with.

Clarus knew he’d had a role in laying those bricks around him, trapping the boy in his duty before he’d even begun to grow into a man. He remembered what it was like being walled in. In the suffocation, one simply learned to breathe less.

“It’ll be alright.”

Gladio took no more than an instant to take the words to heart. He could hope them, but not trust them to be true. Not yet. Nodding slightly, he gave his minimal reply.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

“It _will.”_

A grating buzz came from Clarus’ phone as the screen made his eyes shine in a ghostly blue. Gladio stayed focused on the road, scrambling for the Citadel.

“It’s fine, they’re alright. Threat neutralised and in custody.”

“What?”

“Cor’s asked we meet at his office,” Clarus sighed, able to breathe again.

“Okay,” Gladio muttered, forcing his lungs full before puffing out his cheeks. He was still fizzing, burning even. The weights on his limbs were easing off, each able to stand on their own. Gladio made a sharp right to the Crownsguard headquarters and drew into the small compound at the back.

The thud of closing doors sprinted away through the dark as they made their way to a small side door. Once inside, Gladio kept to his father’s pace, forcing longer legs to slow and blinking through the blinding fluorescent lights. They reached the end of the boxy corridor and jogged up the stairs.

Gladio pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it. He’d left it on her texts. He’d just sent her a map of Leide and asked her to pick a spot. Her reply was brief and fair.

_You’re driving. You pick._

_Not Longwythe, though._

He left the conversation for now, opening the one with Noctis and sending a quick text.

_Still alive?_

He tucked the phone away, silenced, as they came upon the varnished yew doors of Cor’s office. Gladio opened the door and let his father through before stepping inside.

Cor was leaning over desk, elbows locked as he propped himself up and glared at his computer screen. Intel was flooding in, from the Glaives, the Guards, everything from earpiece recordings to the beginnings of typed reports, all shared on his screen. The pale light made icy eyes cutting in the dim office, no matter how tired they were.

He stood up straight, one arm across his front as the other played in the dark stubble of his beard. Cor spoke in a deep tone, half-croaking from sleep.

“Duscaean rebel. Orchestrated with four, so far, associates, some already convicted of piracy and one of them was ours. Private Dereo. Went AWOL last year.”

“Well, there’s how they got in,” Clarus mused, his tone as troubled as his frown.

“Still doesn’t answer how we missed them,” Cor waved the hand from his chin before letting it rest on his other arm. “Security was the average numbers, earpieces all reporting conscious vitals and regular updates.”

“Where did they get through?”

“South side, door by the kitchen.”

“Sounds like someone let them in,” Gladio suggested, eyes flicking between his mentors.

“Likely.”

“Definitely, we’ve got him too.”

Both Amicitia’s turned to Cor. Under the knitted brows and concerned eyes they wore with eerie similarity, no matter how different their colouring, the Marshal gave his answer.

“Fores. One of the new recruits, the one missing a finger.”

“Never trust the quiet ones,” Clarus clenched his jaw, frown shifting to disappointment.

“He’s anything but quiet. Tried to talk himself out three different ways already and we only caught him ten minutes ago.”

Clarus just shook his head.  After a moment, he spoke.

“We’ll be upping security then. Do we have a plan?”

“The only thing we _can_ do. More guards, ones that have been with us longer. We’ll keep an eye on shift pairings, anyone breathes the wrong way we put eyes on them. Keep this quiet, as usual.”

Gladio nodded and watched the Marshall reel off his precautions. The adrenaline was sinking; no longer quicksilver in his veins, it was more like lead. It was as though he’d been filled with iron and his bed were the magnet. The floor had an equal pull. He felt heavy.

“We’ll move the prince to his apartment, and that’s where you come in. That place is going to need swept daily- maybe even twice. Guarding to and from. Don’t let him out of your sight,” Cor spoke directly to Gladio. “Until this proves it’s calmed down, he’s on lockdown.”

_And you with him._

“That’s not going to be a problem, right?”

Gladio was fighting to keep his jaw unclenched, and to stop his chest from sinking. His best laid plans had been dashed, pieces smacked from the board just as the game was beginning. He could feel the city walls growing taller, thicker, caging him. There’d be no unhindered horizons. No spare hours. His existence would hinge on another for however long it took. He’d barely sleep. He’d eat, if he remembered to. He’d spend every single moment fixating on every single detail surrounding Noctis.

That was just the way it was. It was carved into the chains, and the chains were fixed to his very bones.

Gladio took what would be his last full breath before laying the final brick himself.

“No, sir. Duty first.”

With that, her hand slipped from his.


	13. Depth

Gladio pulled himself from the bed again. As heavy as he felt, staying still was grating on his nerves. He padded to the kitchen, tiles cold under bare feet, to stare at the open fridge in the hope he’d either be stirred to eat or that simply staring at something bright would make him crave the dim quiet of his bedroom. That was half the problem. It was silent.

He’d tried everything. An evening run to tire the restless body trapping him. A long, hot shower spent visualising the stains of the day washing from his shoulders. A full meal. Reading. Cleaning. Music. Staring at the reports until letters blurred into each other.

Nothing. His head had barely drooped. There was something wrong. An itch had worked its way under his skin to gnaw at him. Something had been misplaced. The prickling inability to switch off was beginning to pluck at his patience, playing him like an instrument and to its liking, and only laid further eggshells under his feet.

He hadn’t noticed that he was tapping the top of the fridge. Gladio stopped abruptly and shut the door with a thud, only to pace the kitchen.

He was too tired to be this awake.

The idea came quiet and gentle, landing on him like a fallen leaf on still water. The ripples had barely reached his edges before he was picking up the phone. He held it to his ear and pleaded silently, still walking back and forth. The first ring sounded the moment he saw the clock.

Half past midnight.

Cursing himself and his inconsideration, he hung up and put the phone on the table. Gladio winced at the screen, hoping it’d stay lifeless and blank. He cracked his knuckles, more out of habit than necessity. His mind was fixating on anything, over-analysing each and every detail.

She’d be asleep. Even if she wasn’t, the likelihood of starting a conversation at this time of night would be slim. He puffed a laugh through his nose at the thought of her response. Likely telling him to _go the fuck to sleep_. Or worse, he’d have woken her up. She was so still when she slept. It was the only time she seemed to take a break; the only time her own restlessness let go and dropped her into the silken abyss of sleep.

The phone rattled thickly against the table.

“Shit,” he cursed quietly, picking up the call. “Hey…”

“Hey, everything alright?”

He clung to the smooth stringing of that voice from one word to the next.

“Thought you’d be asleep,” he admitted, making his rounds of the annexe as he paced again.

“Nah, not yet. Should be, and so should you,” she pointed out. After a silent moment that lasted too long, she spoke up again, not piercing the silence, just pressing against it like a hand against a sheet. “What’s going on?”

Gladio admitted it with reluctance, feeling like a whining child seeking out his parents in the middle of the night. He felt safer by the soft lights, away from where the shadows moved.

“I can’t sleep.”

He heard a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Need company?”

Gladio closed his eyes, but only found it easier to visualise her, and opened them again, staring out the kitchen window as he passed. The city lights were bright but distant enough to offer him light without blindness. It was much like himself, awake even as it slowed down enough to sleep.

“No, you should get some rest. I’ll see you… when I see you, I guess.”

“Gladio.”

There was something in the way she said it. She was soft and stern, the firm grip of a guiding hand held gently.

“I haven’t seen you in a week and we’re both awake. You might as well, so just come over,” she urged quietly.

His eyes landed on his keys as they rested on the table. His voice was as hushed as ashes.

“Okay.”

“Alright?”

He nodded to himself. “Alright.”

His hand made the journey, grounding him to each step. The keys cutting into his palm as he gripped too tight. His door handle. The leather of the steering wheel and gearstick. The small, concave, white button on her building; the pill he took to make himself better. His own palm as he knocked.

Cool air met him when she opened the door. Not as cold as outside, but by no means warm. She didn’t need the place to be warm. She’d moved the lamp. The paper moon no longer stayed full over the sofa; it was by the opposing wall, hanging by a worn leather armchair. The years of use and abuse had made it soft. Another lamp glowed on the end table. Both backlit her, giving a soft haze to the mess of her hair and casting her in warmer hues than her own.

Rena read him. His eyes didn’t follow their usual swathes and slow, calm movements. Gladio’s focus was jerking, unable to rest anywhere for long. He was rocking back and forward on his feet, hands deep in his pockets to stop them moving. She stepped aside and tilted her head towards the room.

“C’mon,” she said quietly, somewhere between an order and a request.

He sniffed and stepped inside. Tails thumped against the sofa before the dogs rose, stretching and yawning before plodding over. Gladio pressed the door shut behind himself, backing against the wood to minimise the space his restless bones took up.

He didn’t belong here. It was too peaceful. Between the soft lighting, quiet company and barely audible music, he was a boxed hurricane that threatened to tear it apart.

Rena turned from greeting the drowsy dogs, getting a better look at him as the light smoothed over him. His eyes were dull, and in dark sockets. He’d tugged his hair into a mess, half-tearing it out in his sleep. Gladio’s steadfast nature had left him, hiding away while a fragile nervousness made him awkward and tense. He looked fragile, and he felt weak.

Her voice pulled his focus, catching it as it shifted around the room like a thread in the wind.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head, answering before he even gave it a thought.

“Gladio, what’s wrong?” she tried again, watching him with a soft frown over dark eyes. She was conscious of pressing him, but concern was making its demands.

He wrestled his answer out with a shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?”

Gladio gritted his teeth with a troubled frown, shaking his head as his shoulders began to rise. He spoke with quiet urgency, keeping his voice hushed to no more than his normal speaking volume.

“I don’t know! I can’t sleep. I tried everything and nothing’s working. Don’t know why the hell it had to be _today,_ but it is and I just-. Noct’s off constant surveillance but I just can’t- damn it! I don’t know, okay? I called you up cause I missed you and- and,” he interrupted his own ramble to gesture to her as she stood in shorts and a tank. “you were already going to bed and I should’ve been in bed and I _was,_ but I just can’t do it. I can’t stop and I don’t know why and it’s pissing me off and now I’m keeping you up and I’m sorry, okay?!”

She’d stayed perfectly still as he’d gestured throughout his frantic explanation, initially just holding up a hand and ending with a larger motion, both arms spreading out in his frustration. Gladio sighed deeply and reached backwards for the door handle.

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “I’ll just- yeah, I’ll just go.”

Rena stepped towards him silently, watching his face even as he looked at the floor. Gladio clenched his jaw and didn’t move, feeling his own discomfort couple with shame as they twisted in his gut, writhing as though he’d swallowed eels. She was unsettled purely by the tectonic grating of his nerves against themselves. Restlessness was no stranger, and peace was the fleeting prize of a hard-fought battle.

She reached forwards and brushed her knuckles against his. His grip on the door handle loosened. A light fingertip trailed around his wrist before leading into his palm as he accepted the intertwining of fingers. She did the same with the other hand. Steadied at two of his fraying edges, he kept his eyes on the floor. A gentle squeeze asked for his attention.

Dark eyes watched with all the softness of evening rain. Gladio sniffed and closed his own eyes, opening them again and forcing himself to look at her as she stayed steady in front of him. The gentle stroke of her thumbs against his own was pulling his focus to his hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “For snapping, I’m-.”

“Shh,” she hushed, stepping closer again.

Rena loosened her fingers from his and saw his chest sink further as he breathed out, still grinding his teeth. He was warm, staying perfectly still. As one of her hands brushed his, it travelled up over the bared forearm, the bunched hoodie sleeve at his elbow, all the way to his shoulder. Rena had barely started the hug when Gladio couldn’t help himself. He draped around her. Heavy and warm, he began to slow down against her. His hands fell naturally, finding their places as one buried into her hair and the other arm hooked around her waist. Flush against him and frowning into his neck, her words were muffled by their closeness.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry-.”

“Shh. Stop apologising. You haven’t done anything wrong. Not to me, anyway,” she assured. Rena was wrapped in his scent, in sage and salt and that warmth he always had. “And you’re damn loud. Just… whisper.”

She swayed a little, swivelling him to reform the restlessness into smoother motions.

“Okay,” came hoarse and barely audible from his mouth as stayed close to her ear.

“More magic in a whisper anyway,” she mused, half-smiling as she felt him squeeze her gently.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rena nodded, one hand at his back while the other was warmed by the back of his neck. “Then it’s just for you and me.”

She could hear the smile as he breathed, burying his nose in her hair. The pair stayed, moving gently to keep the world from spinning around them, and learned the feel of each other. They’d fought, pinned each other countless times, but this was different. This was softer. Careful. Quiet. Just as instinctive. Gladio’s harder form was still tense as he fought to keep himself slow.

“There’s a bath there for you.”

Gladio leant back to look at her, a gentle frown playing at his features. She shook her head and gave the rest of her reasoning before he could launch a protest.

“I’ve already run it, just go for it. Soak. It’ll help you settle.”

The sureness in her tone had Gladio leaving his arguments at the door. Brown eyes were dulled by a fatigue he couldn’t shake. It gripped him, but too tight. Instead of tiring him, it was crushing and yet refusing to finish the job.

“Okay,” he said, holding her close.

“Go on,” she tilted her head towards the bathroom. “Let me know when you’re nearly done, I’ll get some food on the go.”

A tired smile pulled across exhausted features, creasing his eyes as it curled his lips. “Thanks.”

“It’s alright. Now go and do it,” she nodded.

She braced her hands against his elbows, almost feeling a small part of herself tearing away when he made for the bathroom. The door clicked quietly. Rena busied herself with idle tasks, still feeling the warmth of him pressed against her, all hard muscle and soft touches. His frantic behaviour had struck her. Mostly because she recognised it. Days like his were rare, and all the more difficult for it.

She couldn’t get his scent out of her head. Despite having left, he was still clinging to her, closer than he’d ever been. The idea of it had scared her, made her wring her hands on multiple occasions. The mere thought of being that close to another person made her want to run. Now all she wanted to do was run back.

Rena padded to her bedroom, freeing her phone from the charger and remaking the bed. After straightening the room, she passed by the bathroom and knocked quietly on the door.

“You done?”

“Yeah,” he called quietly.

“Can I come in? Towels,” she reasoned, leant against the doorframe and tilting the folded fabric in her hand.

“Sure.”

Rena opened the door and stepped in, eyes only lifting from the towels to see one already on the radiator.

_“Fucking hell!”_

“Sorry!”

She raised her voice into the clean towels she’d hidden her face in, turned away from him. “You said you were done!”

“Getting in!”

“How did that take half an hour?!”

“I dunno! I washed?”

“Well good for you! Good gods…” she muttered, trying to ignore the pounding blood in her ears. “Any shame? At all?”

“Little bit,” he admitted. “I’m nearly done. For real, this time.”

“Hooo alright. I’ll go get you something to eat, just come through to the living room when you’re ready and I’ll… oh my fucking gods,” she fell into laughing, head shaking as she cringed into her hands. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he chuckled. “I don’t mind if you don’t.”

A small sound of frustration left her as she tried to refocus. She’d only seen him from the chest up, but it was new. There was a man. A naked man. In her bathtub. Naked. She was glad the only thing facing her was the door, otherwise he’d have spotted the bright blush and expression that cycled through mortification, cringing, withheld laughter and disbelief.

“I’m… gonna go get some food. Just come get it when you’re ready and…”

Rena trailed off as a loud grumble came from behind her, echoing through the resounding acoustics of the bathroom. She took a moment, and a deep breath, before sighing her new plan.

“Scratch that, I’m not having you black out in the bath. You’d be fuckin’ hard to move.”

“I could just sleep in it?” he suggested gently, low voice drifting through the room.

“No,” she shook her head. “Waking up from blacking out in the bath’s shitty, trust me. And it’ll fuck your back up.”

Gladio snorted and let his agreement pushed through the warmest room in the apartment. “Okay.”

“Alright, I’m gonna go and when I come back, bubble placement is gonna have to be a thing.”

“You got it.”

“Right…”

Rena slipped back out into the apartment, shaking her head and biting back laughter. Disbelief was showing itself as she put some leftovers in a pan and grounded herself in the _tick-tick-phoompf_ of the gas lighting. The small kitchen soon filled, it’s tiny square window fogging with the breath of herbs and braised meat left to stew. Rena paired it with rice and left the fork in the steaming bowl to fill a glass of water. She braced herself and picked them up on her way to the bathroom.

She kept her eyes to the bowl in her hand as she pushed the door shut with her hip.

“Are we good?”

“We’re good.”

Gladio was right where she’d left him. Soaked to the neck and drying quickly as he sat in the tub, knees out of the water, he smiled gently as she shook an incredulous laugh away again. The tub was too small for Rena, let alone him. She set herself down on the floor, line of sight interrupted by the edge of the bath and briefly leant forwards to pass him the bowl.

“There, that’ll fill you up.”

“Thanks,” he smiled, snorting quietly as she fought the rising blush. He gave the meal a curious look.

“Garula. It’s just a casserole thing,” she shrugged as he chewed his first bite.

“S’good.”

“You have to say that, I’m sitting right here,” she said, legs crossed as she leant back against the wall. Mouth full, he gave a small frown and widened his eyes. He swallowed too fast and coughed as the rice stuck in his throat.

“I mean it,” he assured. “It’s kinda sweet.”

“Rice wine.”

“That another Cleigne thing?”

“Yep. Saxham.”

“Shoulda guessed,” he smiled, spearing another steaming morsel, this time a piece of carrot rendered soft by the stewing. “You guys make alcohol out of anything.”

Rena snorted and let her head hang. “We’ll fuckin’ try. We’ve figured most of them out.”

“Yeah? I’m surprised you haven’t thrown half a bottle of whiskey at me.”

“Don’t have any,” she admitted softly.

Gladio paused mid-chew and tried to read her.

She’d changed in subtle ways since that first meeting in Leide, and even in the months since they’d been pitted against each other. She was clearer; smoothed. Her voice still held an edge, a memory of sleepless nights drinking a dangerous ambrosia, that gave it a note as hoarse as the edge of a fraying bow. Rena was no stranger to a bottle, but she hadn’t seen one in a while.

It showed on her. She shone in quiet ways. The light of the bathroom showed brighter colours of her hair, like mineral tones in good earth. The shade of exhaustion she’d worn around her eyes had been washed away by time and clarity. She still fidgeted, but slowly. It was the quiet movements of a living thing, refusing to forget that it was alive.

“You need to hydrate anyway. Whiskey won’t do anything good for you. And, if you didn’t eat that, all I’ve got is toast and jam.”

“Jelly.”

“Jam.”

“Jelly.”

“ _Jam_ under this roof,” she laughed quietly and pointed to the ceiling. Her smile faded slightly as something else pushed into her mind. “Actually, I might have something. You done?”

“One sec,” he said, gathering the last of the rice in the rich sauce and spooning it into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed it quickly. “Yep. Thanks,” he spoke in earnest.

“It’s alright,” Rena shook her head, reaching out to take the bowl. She passed him the glass and pulled herself to her feet.

Gladio sat quietly in the hot water, watching as she padded away quietly. The meal was sitting pleasantly heavy in him, like a cat curled up and purring on his stomach. The earthy, gamey flavours had thrown him into the woods, to a steaming bowl on a cold evening surrounded by trees and stars. It made him long for it but had given him a taste in the meantime. He was beginning to loosen; sails let down as the storm abated. The damages of it were beginning to show as the tensing left his body. A dull ache between his shoulders and a light pressing on his temples. He consciously unclenched his jaw to relieve the tension threatening to swell into a headache.

Slowing down was becoming easier. The whirring of his mind in a tired body was beginning to tail off. He was at the uncomfortable precipice, fully aware that thinking too much would throw him back into full restlessness again.

He grounded himself in his senses. It wasn’t pain, it was just there, and she was all around him. The source of the honey scent that clung to her hair was balanced on the corner of the tub in a small bottle of shower gel. It had given him enough bubbles for modesty and softened him. The soft steam in the room echoed petrichor. The brickwork and dark grey floor tiles, new towels still soft and the quiet were her elements.

A soft knock on the doorframe announced her presence again. She slipped into the bathroom and kept her eyes fixed on his as she held out a bar of dark chocolate.

“It’s not the good stuff, but eat. You’ll feel better.”

“Only if you share,” he bargained quietly.

Rena shook her head with a smile. “Nah, already brushed my teeth…That reminds me, did you bring a brush or…?”

“I didn’t wanna assume anything, case it made you uncomfortable, or something.”

She smiled softly and sighed. “Alright, let me see. I think I’ve got a spare. Now eat the damn chocolate.”

He broke off a chunk and let it sit on his tongue to melt, coating his mouth in the silken bittersweet. Ever quiet and perfectly at home, she crouched by the sink and opened the cabinet above the sink. Gladio took another piece of chocolate, again giving it time for melting meditation. He almost felt himself doing the same, softening tired and slow into the bathwater.

“Aha! Found you, you little fucker,” she said victoriously, holding out an orange toothbrush still in the packaging. Rena left it on the sink with the toothpaste. “I’m gonna go take the dogs out, alright?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, finishing off the glass of water. “I’ll probably come out soon, so… yeah.”

“Well, when you do,” she started, pointing to a fresh towel on the radiator.

“Got it.”

“Alright.”

Rena left, leashed the dogs while they were still half asleep and had barely lifted their heads from the sofa, and made her way down the dark stairs of the tenement. The air brushed her skin into gooseflesh. It was similar to the fizzing, static restlessness she’d never expected to see on him. He’d never looked so nervous. Even when he was wracked with pain and bleeding all over the ground, or fighting his own body for control as she tried to fix it, he’d been sure. It had been bloody and painful, and he was certain about that. It was an absolute.

Restlessness was both absolute and non-existent. It was the fraying cries of a mind as it simultaneously sang. It was messy and frantic and exhausting. It had gotten to him. Made him tense all over and forget to take care of himself. There was a difference between going through the motions and mindfully tailoring to his own needs. He’d done plenty of the former.

Content the dogs had done what they would, she jogged back up to the apartment and unclipped their leashes as they made their quick patrol in the less abrasive air. It was still cool, but not chilling. It didn’t make flesh rise like cat arching its back. Rena slipped into the kitchen and shook her head at the bowl in the sink. A job for tomorrow. She yawned into her hand and topped up the dogs’ water.

She went back into the living room and picked out a playlist before putting her phone in her pocket and letting it play quietly. Her head turned at the sound of footsteps.

Gladio stepped from the small dark hallway, dressed in the basketball shorts and t-shirt he’d had in his holdall by chance. He dropped a sock and leant down to pick it up. A sharp wince, like a corkscrew stabbing into his mid-back made him hiss. Gladio straightened back up and gave her a soft smile, heading for the sofa with finality.

She brushed her knuckles against his forearm and shook her head.

“You’re not sleeping there, it’ll fuck up your back and the dogs won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, barely above a whisper. Gladio twisted to tuck his bag by the end of the sofa, gritting his teeth as the pain stabbed again. It was cutting and pinpointed, unlike the warm ache spreading across his shoulders.

“Gladio, c’mon. Please,” she said with sincerity, as his fingers wound with hers. His soft frown held, even as he breathed a sigh.

“Okay.”

“Alright, this way.”

Hand still in hers, Gladio followed her to her room. Of all the places in her apartment, this was the most like her. The rougher elements, bare brick walls, wrought iron bedframe and hard floorboards were softened by crinkled sheets and askew pillows. There were hints of her everywhere. The spare headphones on the bedside, the book left open, page down, beside them, a glass of water and the flannel curled up by the foot of the bed like a cat.

She let go to hang the shirt on a drawer before sitting on the bed, legs folded and looking at him as he waited on permission, on invitation. This was personal. This wasn’t a hotel bed by someone else’s arrangement. Gladio watched her carefully, waiting on her word.

“C’mon, it’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

“This is different, it’s _your_ bed.”

“And it’s perfectly capable of taking two big people, now get over here,” she laughed quietly.

He nodded and smiled, placing his own book on the bedside as he swung around to sit on the bed, his back to her to be as unobtrusive as possible. As he moved, the sharp tug in his back made his breath hitch. Rena looked up from putting a pillow in a fresh case.

“Let’s get you fixed,” she said gently. Gladio turned over his shoulder with a smirk.

“Last time you fixed me, you knocked me out.”

Her momentary silence, wide eyed and light-heartedly guilty only made his expression grow into an amused grin. The hoarse croaking around an answer only made him keener to hear it.

“Yeah, but did you die?”

Gladio snorted. “No.”

“Still got two legs?”

“Yeah…” he frowned slightly, still grinning as she picked up her own brighter expression, lips pulling into a smile of her own.

“They both work?” she raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah.”

“Then a knee to temple was _effective treatment_ ,” she signalled inverted commas around the phrase. Gladio’s chuckle was warm and quiet.

“What I woulda done to be in the room when my dad read that report.”

“I didn’t put it in the report.”

“What?!”

Rena held up her inverted commas again. “ _Patient was subdued.”_

Gladio laughed and shook his head. “Could do with being _subdued_ right about now.”

“I’m not gonna knee you in the head, that’s a promise. I’ll try not to do it again, if I can.”

“Even if I ask?”

“Even if you ask.”

Gladio breathed a sigh and backed up onto the bed, enough to fold his legs. Doing so, made him tense again and even though he didn’t make a sound, she saw it. She reached out to his wrist, trailing the soft touch up to the sleeve of his t-shirt. Gladio turned over his shoulder with a concerned frown. She was sitting on her heels behind him, leant to the side to meet his gaze.

“Nothing like that,” she shook her head, holding him in soft focus. “Not tonight, anyway. Can’t send you on a mission with an injury, it’s just not fair on you.”

A snort left him. “You always just…”

“Ruin the moment?” Rena asked, raising a brow as she smiled.

“ _That_ … And make me laugh.”

“Laughing’s good for the soul. Now c’mon. You’re not sleeping on that, it’ll make it worse,” she insisted gently, giving the sleeve of the white t-shirt a soft tug.

Still smiling, though a more tired rendition, he turned his head forwards and pulled the shirt from the hips, arms crossed as he bared his back. Rena watched him tense, fingers playing with each other to warm themselves up. When the shirt pinged from his head, she watched his shoulder move as he straightened the shirt and folded it, before laying it at his side.

“Right,” she began quietly, taking in the sight of him.

All the strength of his back was doing nothing but wracking him with pain and cramps as it tried to work out its own knots. Tanned skin gave off enough heat that she could feel it without touching him. Gladio ran a hand through his hair, letting it weigh heavy and pull down on his nape. She mapped him with her eyes first. Broad shoulders, thickly muscled under the ink, led down to a toned waist and broad hips.

“Alright… I haven’t done this before so if it hurts, tell me,” she urged, barely above a whisper. He nodded and let his hands fall into his lap.

“Okay.”

Already heavy from a hot bath and fatigue, he stayed perfectly still. Rena fought herself quietly and reached out. His neck seemed a good place to start. Warm, almost hot flesh, was tense and tough under her hands. Gladio exhaled deeply as she began to find the knots and work them out. Warm hands, gentle but strong enough to move him, rearranged the muscles over the bones, straightening them out as she untangled the mess he’d made of himself.

Rena watched as tension broke from him, falling like ice from a glacier into a warmer sea. It was a landslide under her fingers, knuckles, palms as she learned the feel of his skin through innocent touches and the need to bring him back down to the ground and let him breathe easier air. The roughness left his posture, felled like trees as the earth gave out underneath them. His breathing deepened. A rare, breathy sigh earned her attention and had her leaning forwards to peak, mortified at the possibility of hurting him. Dark lashes had fallen shut while petal pink lips had opened. There was no frown, no gritted teeth, no pulled lips and pain.

She leant back to her working position, pulling the threads of him until the tapestry was smooth; until he rippled with every breath like a full wheat field swept by the wind. As she rubbed a knot out of his lower spine with a thumb, her other hand coursed up to push him forwards lightly and expose the underbelly of the tension clinging to him.

He flinched. Powerful shoulder blades peaked from the muscle and pinched together. Her hands left him instantly.

“Sore?”

He breathed a laugh and shook his head. “Tickles.”

Rena gave a relieved sigh. “Might need to remember that. You scared the shit out of me, though.”

“Having a good time?”

“Are you?” she asked, leaning forwards as she smoothed his shoulders again. The bones returned to hiding under the muscle, bidden back to their beds. He nodded as warm hands stayed on him. Gladio fought another tense when her hair fell forwards and brushed between his shoulder blades again. She held him still, commanding with a gentle touch.

“Yeah.”

“Good, because I’m not done yet.”

“Huh?”

“Missed one,” she noted. Rena found a knotted muscle directly on the spine, just below his shoulders. She pushed both thumbs in and smoothed in an upward stroke, in perfect symmetry, as she spread it out and worked it away, piece by piece. A low, satisfied groan left Gladio, making her eyebrows rise. She snorted a laugh.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Pfff, no… gods no… thank _you,”_ he trailed, barely able to string it together as his head hung forwards. The final brick left him and let him breathe.

She hummed a single affirmation and continued to work the last of it from him.

“We used to have this thing. With all the fieldwork and forestry… It was kind of an old wives tale, or just an excuse for when work took it out of people, _but_ it was that when your back hurts, especially _here,”_ she spread her hands out over his shoulders, drifting from spine to his arms before moving back. “It was you getting your wings, whether or not you needed them yet. You’d earned them by working hard, and earning them hurt, but anything worth gaining was worth the pain.”

Gladio had wings already. They were inked into his skin, and he had earned them. They may have been his birthright, and his definition, but they didn’t run deep. It was a symbol that barely scratched the surface of his bond and duty. His life was irrevocably bound to another, since before either had been born. These wings couldn’t take him to far horizons, to the ends of Eos and beyond. They kept him close to watch over another, ready to defend at any cost.

She’d softened him enough. Worked smooth and left to rise again, she’d turned him as biddable as dough in her hands, able to push and pull but he’d always slowly return to a resting point. Hands splayed against his back, she could feel his heart under the ink, the skin, the muscle, the bone, beating strong and steady. Rena leant forwards, arms tucked between them, and peeked at him.

Tired, but calm. He blinked slowly, lashes never parting far from each other as he breathed gently, so still he was almost part of the room. Rena watched his profile at peace. He was back down on the ground, and ready to sleep as part of it.

“Still awake?”

“Hm?” Gladio turned his head. He opened his eyes to reveal chestnut rings around large, inky pupils. A restful smile pushed at his features. “Yeah, I’m still… Yeah.”

“Did I get them all?”

He nodded, briefly closing his eyes before revealing the soft burn of the amber. Roused by looking at her, his eyes moved from hers and following the twist of a curl until he reached her mouth.

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“Good,” she whispered back, hiding behind his shoulder as she rested her forehead on him. It had been a long day for both of them. Staying awake this long would wear on them into the morning, but if it was needed, it’d be done. Her eyes travelled to the narrow gap to her left; to the bedside table and the books resting on it.

“You started it then?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. S’good,” he muttered in drowsy inanity.

“Which part are you at?”

“They’d just gone to the house… The one with the maze in the garden.”

“And you left it there? Gods, wait till you hear what happened afterwards.”

He huffed a laugh, closing his eyes to focus on the sensation of her at his back as she moved, chin resting on his shoulder.

“Read to me?”

“Hmm?”

Gladio forced his eyes to stay open and looked at her softly. The gentle frown and watchful eyes were still awake, still sharp even as he dulled to a fogged edge.

“Read to me. Please.”

She took a slow, deep breath and bit the inside of her lip.

“Alright, you big kid.”

Fixed with a drowsy smile, Gladio felt cool air against his back when she drew away.

“You cold?”

“Nah,” he shook his head, turning so that she was at his side, as opposed to behind him.

“Shame,” she said, passing him the bundled throw.

He smirked and spread it out over his legs, flopping back against the bed and reaching for the book. Fingers made clumsy by a fading focus, he found the dogeared page and held it open.

“Alright, give it here.”

Gladio passed her the book. She’d settled on her front, propped up on her elbows and softly lit by the bedside lamp. Rena pushed the book up against the pillows, angled to reach, and found his hand. Gladio let her take it. Her fingers played with his, blindly mapping the lines of his palm and the edges of callouses as she read.

Her voice was hushed hoarse but always smooth, passing words to him as her eyes swept over the lines like a bow over strings. The sound of her, steady, rising and falling with the prose seeped into his skin and made him warm. Even as he fought to keep his eyes open, to keep looking at her, he was fighting what he’d craved. He’d abandon sleep if it meant he could keep this.

It was her ambience. Soft light. The music playing quietly in the living room to force the leaking sounds of the rest of the world away. The scent of her bed, all honey and pine and petrichor; a summer evening threatening thunder.

Curls drifted down. He kept their hands linked by the littlest fingers and swept it away before letting her play again. Rena knew he was watching. Whenever his breathing quietened, or his hand stopped reacting in gently pushes, she’d flick her eyes up and check on him. He had that look on him again. The one she couldn’t read.  

Heat rose to her cheeks. It only made his eyes crease with a tired smile. He squeezed her fingers a little, just to prove he was awake and there with her. Rena focused back on the book as the warmth in her cheeks persisted, as stubborn as the rest of her. A sleep-shaken sigh came from her right, immediately earning her attention. He was still awake, and still looking like that. He’d never looked so soft. Mellow eyes mapped her features as his own held a soft smile that waxed and waned as he fought to stay awake.

“What? You need another drink or…?”

“No,” he barely whispered, following the twist of another curl as it spun and then pooled on the bed with the others.

“Then what’s wrong?” she asked gently, holding one finger on her place in the book as the other hand played in his. He pushed his fingers between hers and watched her with an affection she’d never seen.

“Nothin’. You’re just… beautiful.”

It was a softer stilling, but she still froze and forgot to breathe.

“Ah, c’mon. You’ve gotta have heard that one-…”

She shook her head gently. His brows furrowed.

“Not even your parents?”

Rena shook her head again and shrugged lightly, moving her focus to their hands. The scarring on her knuckles made the skin on otherwise smooth hands thick and rough.

“Never needed to be,” she reasoned. “Still don’t.”

Gladio paused, held in the pendulum swing. “You are. Even if you don’t need to be, you _are¸_ okay?”

He watched her features go through a now familiar shift. The light pinch of her brows as she gave a small, sincere smile. As she closed her eyes, she shook her head minimally, then reopened them on the page. Each time Gladio hauled himself back into full consciousness, her cheeks were blooming with summer roses. Soft eyes held on her face as he listened to the sound of a smooth, quiet voice lulling him to sleep in soothing rhythm. Enamoured and exhausted, Gladio faded out.

The stillness of his hand gave him away. Rena continued to the end of the page, just to make sure he was asleep and going to stay that way. It was her way of pushing his boat out onto a restful sea under a silver moon; she’d make sure he was far from the pier, the jagged rocks and rougher tides of the coast so that he could drift on an oceanic rest that rose and fell with his every breath.

Content that he was in that oblivion, she closed the book and carefully withdrew her hand, leaving his on the bed as he slept. Rena left slowly, padding from the room and ushering the dogs from the sofa. She took the cream throw and curled up. Once the dogs took their places around her, she closed her eyes and let the darkness pillow around her.  

A deep inhale came from the bedroom, not fast but enough for her eyes to open. She reached for her phone and met the smooth surface of the table. Flapping blindly, she groaned and turned the lamp on. No phone.

_Must’ve fallen out. Bed._

Rena shook her head and got up without disturbing the dogs. She switched the lamp off and padded silently to the bedroom. The lamp was still on. He was still flaked on the bed. His features had gathered a frown as he kept shifting, hand running over the sheets in blind, subconscious search. The phone was sitting bold and idle against the soft white sheets and the dark grey of the throw that covered him to the waist.

She snuck to the other side of the bed and plucked the phone. Still playing quiet music, the only outlying feature of the bed was him, and the tattooed arm as it moved gently. Curiosity and a warmth she was yet to understand made her brush her fingertips over his thumb.

When he paused, she did the same. His hand took hers, as his breath shook in sleep, and pulled. Unwilling to wake him, she leant down and let him have it. Gladio turned to face them. His subconscious did the work for him as he met their hands with his lips and stayed soft and faded in sleep.

What few other choices she’d been forcing herself to find were dashed by his simple, innocent gesture. He was so tired. This was only just the beginning of fixing him. His breaking days were rare, often leaving him ashamed and rougher for the following as he picked up his pieces, scattered like feathers. She’d caught him on the way down, slowing his fall until he bumped the ground instead of breaking. Getting him back into the air would take a bit of a push, and making the fire burn bright again would need fuel, but it was nothing she couldn’t do. It was just something she hadn’t done before.

Rena sighed and knelt on the bed, reaching over him to switch off the lamp. She moved the pillows her wasn’t using anyway and settled down on her front, shoulder level with his head as she watched the door. His breathing was steady. Warmth emanated from his skin, seeping into the bed and passing to her. Hands played idly, the conscious touches of one returned by the squeezes and clumsy strokes of a sleeping counterpart until they matched in that quiet stillness of sleep.

Gladio cleared his throat before taking his first conscious breath of the day. He could smell her. That was nothing new; he sometimes thought he could smell her recently. The honey and pine had clung to his skin, no matter how much he hadn’t seen her.

Only he had seen her. Gladio pried one eye open, then blinked the other to focus. He was facing the window. Condensation formed drips on the inside of the single-paned glass; the most innocent of manmade rain. The blue of a winter morning twilight filled the room in its thin, smooth colours.

But his windows were double-glazed. They weren’t in dark wood frames. His walls weren’t bare brick. His sheets weren’t ivory linen, and they were never as tidy as this in the morning. He searched the other side of the bed.

There was nothing but the ghost of her, the swathes her movements had put in the fabric, like tracks in snow. Gladio felt the sheets against his bared skin and a weight dropped in his gut. He cast the throw from his waist and only breathed when he saw the black of his basketball shorts. So they hadn’t done that, and more importantly he hadn’t forgotten it, or done something so unforgivable for her to leave bed.

The previous night returned to him as sleep finally let him fight from the cradling tendrils of oblivion. That bed had a heavy pull. It softened a person. Slowed them down and convinced them that clocks didn’t exist. He propped himself up on his elbows and listened. It was quiet. Gladio forced himself to leave the sheets, getting all the way to the door of the room before turning back and making the bed. He plucked his shirt from the floor and wrestled into it.

At the end of the hallway, he could hear crunching. He poked his head into the living room. Tails were wagging, sweeping lazily over their backs as the dogs ate breakfast.

She stepped sideways, still focused in the kitchen, and sipped a glass of water. A quiet sniff behind her announced his presence as he ducked into the kitchen. Rena had just reached for an egg when his knuckle brushed against her back. She didn’t move, but she didn’t tense. Strong arms wrapped around her. Rena pressed back against him, flush to the body still warm and heavy from sleep. His voice came hoarse and gravelly from somewhere in her hair.

“Mornin’.”

“Morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock. Did you drug me?” he jested softly.

“No, but I’ll keep it in mind,” she returned the game, sweeping her hair away from her face with a hand as the other found his and wrapped with his fingers.

Gladio took a deep breath, filling his lungs and pulling taut then shrinking back, releasing the yawn with a rough exhale. He took a draw of her hair before letting his head rest on her shoulder. He was weighing down on her, too relaxed to have the will to stand on his own. Rena felt her own yawn brewing.

“Oh, for fuck’s- _huh_ ,” she cursed softly, interrupted by the tugging breath. The hoarseness of her voice in the morning made her own exhale a rough, little whine.

He laughed richly in his throat and she felt the sound at her back. Gladio nuzzled against her neck, making her sway slightly from the clumsy handling of affectionate strength. Rena paused making breakfast and leant back against him, letting her breathing fall in time with his as his arms hooked around her waist, thumbs rubbing at her sides. He pressed his cheek to her head, nose buried in the curls that smelled of honeyed sleep. His silent thanks were voiced in every moment he spent clinging to her, surrounding her in a warmth she was only just beginning to ask for.

When she turned her head slightly to move her glass back from the edge, Gladio nudged forwards and brushed a kiss to her cheek. She didn’t freeze. She didn’t stay still either. Rena paused before pressing back against him. He smiled against her skin and gave a fuller kiss. Her eyelashes were tickling the side of his nose. The warmth of his lips was passing into her, making her blush under his attentions. The two swayed from side to side gently, joined by the simple, innocent connection.

Rena spoke while he pressed another kiss at her temple.

“How d’you take your eggs?” she asked, turning back to her current and almost forgotten task. It was harder to focus with the lilac and rose honeyglow floating around her head like pollen thrown from flowers. His lips broke from her skin and he mumbled into her hair.

“Don’t mind. You choose.”

“Hope you like scrambled,” she said quietly, cracking an egg against a jug. He smiled and sighed against the curls; his confidants.

“Scrambled’s good,” he paused, keeping her swaying even as she carried on. She fit in his arms perfectly, strong and soft against him. He smirked and mimicked her earlier question. “How’d you take your toast?”

He leant aside and saw the suppressed smile. “With jam.”

“Jelly,” he whispered, pressing another kiss to her cheek.

“Jam.”

He shook his head and gave her a peck to the temple before letting go and stepping towards the toaster. He barely breathed the word. “Jelly.”

Rena glared sharply at him, only for it melt into a smile as she cracked another egg into the bowl.

* * *

Sparring had never felt so much like dancing. It was easy despite the challenge, and full of grace that defied the power and menace of honed steel.

He met her every strike. He blocked and parried and stepped as they stirred the room, playing a clear tune through steel on steel and boots on boards. Freed of his shadowing, and back on form a few days after he’d stayed the night, Gladio was shining. His healthy glow had returned even as his tan faded with shorter days. Peachy and grinning, he spoke between strikes.

“You’ll never guess… what I had… for lunch… yesterday?”

“Don’t,” she shook her head. “Don’t do it.”

“Sandwich,” he began, teasing the words out as she blocked a strike for his shoulder. “Cheat day, so it was peanut butter and-,”

“Just drop it.”

“ _Jelly._ ”

Rena struck, crossing their swords as they pressed close, held apart by steel as she gave him a deadpan look. “Let it go. You say jelly, I say jam, we both say marmalade.”

“You just said jelly.”

“Gladio, I swear to the fuckin’ gods,” she threatened through a genuine smile. A frown came over her as they pushed apart, flashing blue ashes through the room as each summoned and dropped shields and swords. “Hold on. If it… was cheat day… why didn’t you have something _good?_ Grilled cheese?”

“Had one of them too.”

“Of course you did,” Rena deadpanned. She blocked his sword with the shield before stabbing at the handle of his weapon. “Probably bastardized it, too.”

“Nah, plain ol’ grilled cheese. White bread. Butter. Cheese. Lotta cheese.”

“Did you cry?”

“…No.”

“Liar. Shit liar.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

Rena struck for his side, using it as a diversion to press forwards. He caught her blade just in time, crossing it with his own before lowering them, tension holding them steady. She had that keen look to her again. The bright, sharp focus under a game frown and the slightest upward turn to her mouth. It was her mouth that held his gaze, almost as much as her eyes. Lips were parted around panted breaths as the momentum of the morning spar burned warm and bloody in their bones, heating them against a cold morning.

Gladio made a point of looking her in the eye, before flicking to her lips, then back up. He was asking her. In the middle of this steel driven, sweat breaking, warring dance, he was asking. His gut fizzed with all the brightness of the armiger when dark green hues dropped to his lips. Gladio was barely gripping the sword. At this rate, it would clatter to the ground instead of being cast back. He could almost feel her lips already, that sweet moment of joining surrounded by fireworks and flowers bursting into blossom. His head was moving closer at an achingly slow pace.

The door of the training room was thrown open. The pair pushed the blades and immediately stepped back into their dance, as if they’d never stopped. They’d been so close. Pulled apart by their own binding agreement.

“Morning lovebirds!”

They stopped mid-spar, heads whipping to the source.

“Prom?”

“Yup?”

“Shut the damn door,” Gladio said, frowning at the blond.

“I did, look it’s- oh crap!”

Prompto shoved the door shut, half-slamming it. Not more than a second later, it opened again.

“Oh, nice! Just throw a door in my face, nice move, man,” Noctis chastised, shrugging out of his thick jacket. He caught sight of the two of them, dark steel flashing in the dim light as they played war. “Even better! Now those two are gonna team up on me.”

Rena blocked a strike from above, holding firm under a shield. “Door wouldn’t have hit you if you’d been on time.”

“She’s got a point,” Gladio added. She dodged and met his side strike with the shield again.

“See?!”

“Ah, c’mon. They’re right and _you_ know it,” Prompto grinned, ambling over to Noctis to brighten the blue with his yellow. “You’re always late, anyway.”

“Am not! I haven’t been late for the past two weeks!”

“And who do we owe that to?” Ignis asked, having slipped into the room as the different pairs took their different routes of communication. Noctis grumbled his answer.

“Gladio…”

“Boom,” Gladio smiled, cocking his head.

A final grating of the blades against each other put them at necks, steel hovering. Some invisible armour, immaterial and yet impenetrable, stopped them from putting steel to the other’s skin. It was simply a line that would never be crossed. They both understood that.

Finally at stalemate, a quick nod between them confirmed it.

“You good?”

“Yeah, you?”

“I’m good,” he panted.

Gladio cast his sword away first, keeping his hand in the armiger to feel her put her own weapons back into the smoky waters. She always seemed to hide them, fixing them under non-existent rocks to make sure she could find them again, as if she was caching them in a river.

They turned towards the bench holding their bags, again at opposite ends. Prompto was sitting on it, suppressing laughter as Ignis held firm and calm against Noct’s protests. Shoulder to shoulder, it was Rena that broke the silence.

“You still coming around tonight?”

“If it’s good with you,” he replied, keeping his voice low and facial movements minimal, even if none of the others were looking.

“Don’t see why not.”

“Alright then. Want me to bring anything round?”

“Nah, it’s alright,” she assured quietly.

“Eight?”

“Eight.”

The pair parted and split off towards their separate ends of the bench. Gladio dug around for a bottle of water while Rena shouldered her bag, casually saluted the rest with two fingers from her temple and walked from the room. He caught her eye once she reached the door. The slowed blink and half smile made him fight his own. Stretching his jaw and taking another mouthful, he couldn’t help but feel calmed by the prospect of more time with her. After weeks held down by tightened chains, an inch of leeway felt like a mile.

* * *

Everything was clinging to her. Too close. Cold. Wet. Salt. Fresh.

Rena ran through the rain and the dying light. One hand was wrapped with the leashes, while the other unzipped her pocket to fish out her keys. Her apartment was a mile away and held the promise of a hot shower to make her forget water could be cold. Sweat blended with rain on her skin.

Ochre and Seyna kept their tireless pace at her side. Long ranging strides and easy motion that could go on forever. As much as her lungs were burning, her legs had gone past the point of caring. They’d been heavy, and now they were too numb to feel anything but motion and the pounding of blood as it fought to flow. She covered ground fast, even when soaked to the skin with cold winter rain. At least it stole the heat from her skin and let her breathe. She could take the cold.

The door was drawing closer on her right. She was about to turn and dart up the steps when a car door swung open in front of her and the driver stepped out.

“ _Fuck_ \- sorry!” she offered, fighting her breathing to get the words out. Rena dodged and turned up the steps, turning her key to let herself in.

“Don’t worry about it.”

That familiar voice had her head whipping around to look. Gladio held his jacket over his head, grinning as the rain pelted the leather and drenched her from head to toe. She returned with a breathless smile of her own and pushed the door open. They stepped inside and shut the torrent out with a dull thud.

“You’re early,” she noted. A playful smile pushed at her lips as Gladio shook the water from his jacket. “We’d better be careful. People might start saying things if you keep turning - _agh, shit!”_

Both dogs had planted their feet in the ground and shaken with enough thorough force to move them. Once they’d finished, still flicking their tails and nosing at Gladio, he ran a hand over his face and flicked the rain, both from outside and the dogs, into the hall and chuckling.

“Agh,” she said again, less frustrated but still frowning at the dogs. “Fuck this, I need a shower.”

She started up the stairs, the dogs trailing obediently at her side and behind her in narrower parts. When they passed the third floor, Gladio screwed his face up and paused, braced to sneeze.

“Pineapple.”

“ _Hnn_ \- what? Fruit trick again?”

“Yep. Did it work?”

“…Yeah,” he admitted, wiggling the final burn of the threatening sneeze from his nose.

Rena turned her key in the lock and paused.

“Can you hold these for a minute?” she asked, holding up the leashes as the dogs dripped onto the floor.

“Sure.”

Leashes in hand the dogs still nosing at him, Rena returned with old towels, torn and frayed at the edges.

“Which one do you want?”

“Seyna,” he nodded, as the dog sat quietly by his leg. Rena frowned at Seyna as she looked up at him, all melting eyes and the loyal adoration only a dog could show so well.

“Traitorous bitch,” she muttered through a smile.

She swapped him a towel for Ochre’s leash and rubbed the dog’s legs down before carrying him into the apartment. Gladio did the same with Seyna, snorting at her slightly offended expression when he picked her up. They set the dogs down in the bathroom, the most easily cleaned room in the apartment, with the towels laid out on the floor. Rena caught sight of herself in the mirror.

“I look like a drowned rat,” she laughed.

“Nah, more like a sheep,” Gladio jested, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom. Turning to him with an expression so sincere it could only be sarcastic, Rena stepped towards him.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“Pain in the ass,” she shook her head, stretching up to press a quick kiss to his cheek. He hummed and gave his own lingering counterattack.

Intimacy had come slowly, then all at once. It was the falling of snow as it initially refused to lie and then overnight the world became softer, and special. There were still unspoken boundaries in place. He’d match whatever she gave him. There were times she still flinched, usually when he’d approached silently, or moved unexpectedly, but they were becoming fewer as the days drew on. For now, they were playing in the snow as the rain poured outside.

“I’m gonna wash this… fuckin’ mess, frankly,” she frowned as she pulled the soaks ends of her ponytail forwards.

“Want me to dry the dogs?”

“If you want to,” she shrugged, stopping herself from touching him. He was more or less dry, dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, now slightly speckled from where the dogs had sprayed water at him. Rena was drenched. “They’re gonna need fed in about half an hour.”

“How long you gonna be?!” he laughed. “It’s just a shower.”

“And I have a longer hair than you,” she countered, beginning to work the hair tie out. “You don’t have to.”

“Nah, it’s okay.”

“Right you two, off you go. Out.”

The dogs perked up from rolling around on the towels and looked at her briefly before following the flick of her hand towards the doorway. Gladio clapped gently and turned around from the doorframe to hide out of their line of sight. Seyna was first to investigate. Gladio met her outside the bathroom and gave her ear a quick scratch, before wiping the water off on his jeans. Ochre followed. Rena handed him the towels before closing the door and starting up the shower.

It was one man versus two dogs. How hard could it be?

Gladio started strong, towel in hand and rubbing Ochre down as the dog stretched and twitched, leg thumping against the floor when he found a spot behind the dog’s ear. He’d half dried the mottled coat, full and thick in its winter version, when the quiet presence of Seyna didn’t feel quite so _present._

The dark shape stood dripping at the end of the hallway. Towel already soaked from Ochre, Gladio searched for hers.

_Where the hell… No, she definitely gave me both._

The moment he moved towards Seyna, she started sprinting through the apartment. Nails tapped sharply against the floor. Wet paws slipped. She bumped into the table by the sofa before racing off. A small, simple glass vase of flowers swayed dangerously, water sloshing against the sides. Gladio caught and steadied it. The steady thud of her tail against the back of the armchair gave her away. He toed off his shoes and padded closer, careful to stay quiet and freezing whenever the thump paused. A dark nose, poking out from behind a piece of furniture that would easily have hidden a smaller dog, revealed orientation. The question remained.

Heads or tails?

Gladio thought it best not to underestimate her ability to turn and give him a bite if he frightened her, he approached the head end.

“Found ya.”

She backed out from behind the chair and raced for the kitchen. Gladio followed and corralled her into the room. She stood, tail wagging in a slow dare as he crept closer, already crouching to hold her collar and keep her from soaking the rest of the apartment. He was within arms length. The dog sneezed and twisted away, pawing at the washing machine as she pushed something in.

He shook his head. Gladio took her collar in one hand and plucked the towel out with the other. Accepting that she was caught, but not ready to go down without a fight, she flopped to the ground and became dead weight. Gladio snorted at the unimpressed grumble she gave when he picked her up in the towel and carried her back into the hallway.

She stayed limp and narrowed her eyes in reluctant surrender. Gladio was halfway through drying her when she abated, licking at his arms and pawing at him. There were sounds, but they weren’t from her.

Ochre was wriggling over his towel on the bedroom floor, getting louder as he went on and growling playfully at the fabric. He dragged his face along the towel to dry. He only stopped when Gladio caught sight of him and frowned. Face pulled taut on one side, tail wagging and tongue sticking out, he stayed perfectly still before righting himself and trotting over to pester them.

Something caught his attention. Ochre went back to the bedroom window and put his paws on the sill, fixed on whatever had offended him. Gladio had just made it to the bedroom doorway when the dog let out a soft ‘boof’. He drew level with him and looked out into the incessant rain. Another, louder but still soft vocalisation left the dog. Before it could escalate to barking, Gladio rubbed his ear and tried to distract him.

“What? What’s got you all worked up?”

Ochre turned back and growled quietly, breath fogging on the glass. A frown came over Gladio.

“Why am I talking to a dog?”

_Why am I talking to myself?_

Ochre whined and nudged at his hand before pawing at the window.

_Dog’s talking back._

Gladio shrugged and let it go. He searched the small grey view of the back of the tenement as it stared west and to a colourless sunset that had fallen an hour before.

“What d’you see, buddy?”

Before he could escalate into full barking, Gladio sat down on the floor by the bed and patted the ground, whistling quietly. Ochre came over as Seyna sat and leant against him. His incessant, low chatter of whines and whimpers made Gladio smile and shake his head.

“C’mon, what’re you doing?” Gladio coaxed.

He sped up his game with the dog, gently shoving at his neck as Ochre tried to lick his face. A small motivation, unnamed and uncalled for, made Gladio lean his head back away from him and mimic a soft howl.

The dog stopped immediately and sat with a thump. Prying one eye open and peeking at the dog, Gladio did it again. His head tilted to the side, puzzled and curious, then tilted the other way as Gladio howled again, louder. The dog gave a warbled groan as he watched the man. Gladio gave it one last try, howling as he faced the ceiling and ran his fingers through the plush wheat and grey of dog’s coat.

He was interrupted. A low, clear, haunting sound came from behind him. Ochre darted aside to nudge Seyna as she howled. She paused and snuffled at Gladio. A mischievous smile pushed at his mouth. He’d barely begun when she threw her head back and belted out a howl. Ochre joined in. Before long another dog howled from outside. Then another. Then the apartment upstairs began stamping on their floor. Gladio laughed victoriously as his chorus of mayhem continued.

“What the fuck did you do?” came from the bathroom, shaken by laughter and the torrent of water.

“I dunno, but it worked!”

Gladio howled with the dogs, hearing the ripples of domestic chaos spread out through the quiet evening. He fell into cackles, one arm clutching his side as her own warm laugh echoed from the bathroom.

“C’mon, you gotta join in! Don’t leave us hanging!”

“Get lost!”

“C’mon!”

Gladio provoked the dogs again, his howl shaking as he tried not to crease up. A fourth voice joined the three, smooth and loud. The dogs went a pitch higher as he curled in on himself. The clamour spread through the neighbourhood, occupants of each home either joining in or protesting.

“Alright, that’s enough,” she laughed, shaking her head at him as he snorted and tried to distract the dogs from the task he’d set. “If I don’t get a complaint for that, I’m going to be amazed.”

A sharp whistle silenced the dogs. They both stood up at the window, listening intently as their echoes were thrown further by others. Rena disappeared to put her soaked clothes and the muddied towels in the washing machine. She was about to open the cupboard and pull out the tub of dog food when Gladio appeared at her side, bowls in hands and dogs restless at his heels.

“Oh yeah, you’ll play with them, but you won’t actually take care of them. I get it,” she teased.

“I was getting around to it,” he argued through a smile.

“Two cups each, and…” she reached into the fridge to pull out a tub of chopped carrots. “Split that between them, please.”

“Sheesh, dogs eat better than you,” Gladio noted, doing as he was asked and glancing at her. Curls were weighed down and darkened by the shower. She smelled like honey and fresh water when he leant to kiss her temple.

“Yeah, well,” she sighed, squeezing at Ochre’s ears as he planted his paws on the counter either side of her hips and pressed his head against her. “At least they eat their vegetables. They’ve got one up on Noctis.”

“True. Tell Iggy that, he could use it as an argument.”

She snorted and stroked the dog. There was a softness she held towards them, almost vulnerability. They were her protection, her company, her teammates, confidants to issues she never said aloud and comfort when she needed it. Ochre and Seyna were more her family than her own blood. In a life where nothing had come easily, the one thing that had was the affection of the dogs. It was a bond that ran so deep she couldn’t have imagined life without it. She trusted those dogs. It was that simple.

And he could see it.

Gladio shook the bowls gently, gathering their attentions and leading them through to the spot in the living room.

“Make them sit,” she said quietly. Gladio raised an eyebrow. “They’re working dogs. They need to work, even if it’s only a little bit. Here.”

She took one of the bowls and formed a loose fist with the other hand. That simple gesture had tails hitting the floor eagerly as they waited. She put the bowl down and eyed Seyna the whole time. After waiting a short eternity, and for Gladio to set Ochre’s bowl on the floor, she softened the focused stare.

“Alright, go.”

“Show off.”

“Says you.”

“Exactly. I’d know,” he smiled, leaning down to nudge her as she passed. Knuckles brushed against each other before they turned towards the sofa. Seyna had already finished and was flaking on the couch, watching them with tired satisfaction. Rena shook her head and gently tugged at Gladio’s hand.

“Well, we’re not getting a seat there. How was today, anyway?” she asked, padding down the hallway.

“It was good. Long, but good.”

“You finished early, what was all that about?”

“Ah, just Noct getting sick of me after the last couple weeks. Happens every time,” he shrugged.

A nudge to his free hand pulled his attention from her. Ochre had followed them to the bedroom and set down a small rope toy with chunky knots tied at either end. He wagged his tail and bowed low, inviting Gladio to play.

“You can’t resist it, can you?”

“Hey. We never had dogs, okay?” he reasoned, setting himself down on the floor as Ochre brought the toy closer and bowed again.

Rena settled, legs folded, on the bed and pulled out the recipe book Ignis had given her to fill. “Well, you never had _cats,_ that’s for sure.”

“Iris had a rabbit once. It was cute as hell,” he admitted as the game of tug of war began. He peeked up at her as she sat on the bed, already scribbling away. “Which one is it?”

“Hmm? Uhh… It’s a rice thing. Risotto. There’s an Accordan type that works better than Saxham, but if you know what you’re doing, you can make with the Saxham one.”

“Huh. What’s in it?”

“Ah, there’s the base stuff. Onion, garlic, oil, rice, some wine, cheese. You can throw whatever at it after that.”

Gladio turned from his game with the dog, shoulder occasionally being tugged as Ochre growled playfully and hauled at the toy. “Yeah? What’s your favourite?”

“Probably… mushroom. At this time of year, anyway. You go out one morning and they’re just _there._ Popped up out of the ground or a tree. If the ground isn’t frozen, you can try for truffles.”

“They’re good,” Gladio agreed. “Nice steak and truffles… Can’t go wrong.”

A warm beat of laughter hummed in her throat. “They’re good fresh. Something about smelling the dirt they came from and it lingering on them is just… something else.”

She flicked her eyes up from the page to see an earthen tone watching her with that softness again. Rena held her own this time. His lines were still strong, bold even, but so gentle she could scarcely believe it; that he was right there. The dim grey-blue of the fading day washed him as raindrops falling on the window painted in dark dots.

“C’mere.”

His eyebrow raised slightly, and fast, from his restful expression. The roughness of his voice couldn’t have been softer. “Why?”

“Come here,” she said again, letting the subtle smile lift her lips, closing the book and putting it to the side. “Please.”

Gladio gave his own smile before letting Ochre win the game and standing up. He sat on his heels, on the bed, and let his hands find hers.

“C’mere,” she whispered, eyes captured by his.

He leant forwards as she did the same. Foreheads pressed together, he gave her cheek a light peck. The slow surge of movement was easy and calm. She put her knees either side of his own, and kept herself up out of his lap, as their fingers intertwined.

“You sure about this?” he asked, eyebrows raised in soft question.

Her smile was freely given. “Why?”

“It’s really close,” Gladio said.

“I know.”

He nudged his forehead against hers and took a deep breath. The scents of her were surrounding him. Honey, mint, rain, pine, the earth itself in its freshest, richest soil, in mountain air so clear it was like fresh water. The fresh curls, only just dry, were dark and defined against her skin as the shadows of raindrops put their marks on her. She was warm and careful and curious.

Being so close to him always made her heart sound in her head. It wasn’t a threatening drum of war, or the running footsteps of fear; it was a simple, quiet beat in chorus with the raindrops tapping on the window like plucked guitar strings. He was all around her. Strong limbs in a gentle presence. She could smell the leather of the uniform he’d worn all day. The sage and salt of his shower gel clung to his skin, the same way sharp, sweet lemon oil clung to his hands.

The stubble of his jaw scratched gently against hers as he pressed their cheeks together, one hand leaving hers to bury in her hair where it was kept warm and safe. He took a deeper draw of her scent, willing himself to commit it to memory. A light push to her cheek had her pushing back with a breathed laugh.

The feather of a kiss she gave his scar made his lips part and his chest sink. It was as though she was sewing him back up. If something so soft had existed there, how could the rough, sharp edge of broken glass have ever ripped through him?

He freed his other hand from hers and slipped it to her waist, flat against her back to hold her close. Rena let her fingers play in his hair, losing them to the thick chocolate brown locks. She grounded herself in that, pulling herself back from a ghostly intimacy and gently drawing circles on his shoulder. Blush-warmed cheeks swapped sides slowly as he moved. His lips, plush as petals, pressed to the scar on her cheek; a firm reminder that its existence was no more than a memory made flesh.

They came back to the centre, foreheads pressed as they glowed cosy in the cool room as rain tapped on the window, echoing every tentative fingertip. She brushed her thumb along his jaw and nudged his nose with hers. The smiled exhale was audible as he nuzzled back. The barely-heard mumble made him break into a grin.

“I like your nose.”

“Really? The nose?”

“Why not? It’s a good, decent, honest nose.”

“Oh, so you mean it’s big?”

“I mean I like it,” she muttered, moving to brush a kiss to the bridge of his nose. Gladio couldn’t fight the grin, not when her cheek was blushed warm under his thumb and her eyelashes tickled his forehead. He wasn’t sure he wanted to fight it anyway.

He nuzzled against her again, pushes gradually losing their strength as his brows furrowed against hers.

“Can I kiss you?”

In the dim blue, as if snow had fallen outside instead of rain, she nodded gently. Gladio swept his lips to her scar again, brushing light kisses over her cheek, the tip of her nose, before pausing at the edge of her mouth. She’d settled in his lap, resting warm in her blend of solid and soft against him. Her touches were gentle in his hair and he felt the heat of her neck against his palm, fingers buried in soft curls. He kept his hands fixed on her, fingertips rubbing circles as he fell, spiralling into this moment.

He retreated from her lips, backing far enough away to focus on her eyes. The soft worry in them made his gut twist and a momentary frown push at his face, but this was final. Gladio had changed his mind.

“Please kiss me.”

He asked it so softly. He was taking her hand but letting her lead. Her eyes flickered down to his lips as he held a gentle smile and brushed his thumb over her cheek. When she looked back up, the steadfast hues were waiting for her. Snowflake whispers passed between them.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, nudging his nose against hers again as dark lashes fell shut.

She was terrified.

He was right there.

Rena closed her eyes and found him blind. Slightly parted lips met his and carefully pressed shut. He was so warm and soft and still for her. Gladio gave her a moment before returning with his own pushing kiss, keeping them bound in simple innocence.

It wasn’t fireworks, or the whole of Eos shifting, or the planets suddenly aligning in divine design.

It was being nowhere. It was without time or place but they were free when bound like this. It was an undefined horizon, a landscape they could never hope to map. It surrounded them and lifted everything else away, sheltering them under trees that held the heavy sky of life aloft. This was being lost and at last.

They parted, and their worlds landed on their shoulders again. It may have been a single knock, but they could hear the echo beyond it and knew this was just the beginning. Earth and the forest looked at each other in gentle knowing.

Both surged. Lips met and pressed firmer, craving and in worship of each other for what they could provide. Both soft, both full and both wrapped around each other as the rest of existence left them. It was a feeling they’d both chased alone, and now ran towards the dizzying horizon of it. Together. It was light and sweet but sincere in its depth.

She could feel Gladio’s lips fighting to stay with hers. He could taste the mint of her toothpaste. Gladio kept pulling towards a smile. He couldn’t help it when he felt hunger she didn’t know she’d had in that kiss. The warmth of his hands cupped her cheeks, soft in their strength as her skin heated and blushed, like roses blooming through frost and a summer morning mist. Rena spread her hand on his chest.

Gladio pulled away, breathless, and tried to read her. It wasn’t in vain. There was curiosity, wonder and realisation in her features as she felt his heart pound in his chest, fighting to say what he couldn’t in words that didn’t exist in an enigma she somehow understood.

He breathed a smile as she looked up. Her own soft sincerity pulled the corners of her mouth up. Gladio kissed her silly. A strong arm hooked around her waist and held her flush to him, close enough for her own heartbeat to speak with his and gods knew they had a lot to talk about. His lips met hers again and it all fell away in a landslide until they were nowhere, not even oblivion. He chased her with peppered kisses and nudges, all over her cheeks, jaw, down to her throat as her arms wrapped around his neck. She returned it. Smiling lips branded him gently. All the blessings of the six and more were shared in every kiss, every touch, every warm beat of laughter and tickling eyelashes.

She met him in a final surge, drawing him in again as he met her in swathes and quiet affection that made him hum from deep in his chest. It was the drawing of her bow across heartstrings in a smooth harmony. Even when he broke from that ultimate kiss, he had to wean himself off with short moments of dipping back into nowhere. They were both breathless, and breathtaking.

Foreheads still pressed and eyes fluttered half-shut, he spoke into that small infinity.

“So… How’d you feel about that?”

When silence met him, he leant back slightly to look at her.

“Gladio…”

She spoke as if it were the only word she knew.


	14. Incarnate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With intimacy gathering like snow - slowly, then all at once - Gladio and Rena continue to ignore the rest of the world in favour of learning each other.

She was still fresh from her shower.

He was still damp from his.

Soft fingertips smoothed over the back of his neck as a blend of heat and time pulled the water from his skin. With her eyes closed, he may as well have been steaming the water away like a mountainside in the morning. She could almost see it. The feathers on his back became trees and, in their clearings, mist rose in silken swathes; clouds for tomorrow joining earth and sky.

But he was far more human than that.

For now, she swept the mists up as her fingers drew up his spine, a hand fisting in his hair. He quaked when she passed lightly between his shoulder blades. The kiss fell apart in smiles. Gladio tapped on her hips, drumming his fingertips against the softer flesh over hard muscle. Rena nodded and hummed, still bound by his lips.

He remembered to breathe and gathered the hem of her tank top. It bunched at her waist as warm hands, roughened by years of weaponry, coursed over the bared skin of her hips as fingertips drew towards her spine, sweeping upwards and pushing the fabric with it. A craving hum played in his throat at the warm, easy smoothness of her.

She was in his lap, settled and close. He tapped again, at the back of her waist, a quiet question mumbled against her mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Rena held her arms up as he worked the garment away. She settled back to look at him. The soft light of the bedside lamp set most of him in the sunset tones he wore so well. What little blue darkness came from the window crosshatched his shadows in navy ink. He looked how he felt: warm, gentle and close.

A large hand buried in her hair and angled her for another one of his kisses, the type that rocked them back and forth. He burned hot under his skin, softened to intense warmth when it reached the surface. His hand rested on her hip, coursing up her side slowly enough to make her tense away from it. Lips smiled against hers.

“Tickles?”

“…No.”

“Liar,” he grinned, falling back into nowhere as lips locked sweetly.

His fingers drew waves on her back, each moment of touch wreathing her in soft ivy tendrils, as he stroked upwards and met the interruption; a bra.

“Damn it.”

She snorted, head falling against his neck.

“You never normally wear one at home,” he grumbled into her hair, pressing a kiss to the hazy curls.

“Been stealing glances, have we?”

“More of an ass man,” he reasoned, hands journeying down to her hips before coursing back up. “But, can’t help but notice when you keep it so damn cold in here.”

“It’s not cold,” she said. Rena pressed her lips to his neck and followed a muscle up, pausing at his pulse to feel it flutter. “I’m gonna get you a bra, then you’ll understand.”

“Don’t think it’d fit right.”

“They never fit right, even when they do,” Rena whispered, shoulders writhing as he dragged light fingertips over them. Her touches left his neck and jaw, trailing down to his chest where palms were warmed by the relaxed muscle. She paused over his heart before spreading her hands over his chest. A light squeeze came as she hummed. “You’re at least a c cup.”

“That right?” he tilted his head, nudging against her.

“Mhhmm,” she hummed an affirmation into a kiss. “Band size… different ball game.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass,” grinned Gladio.

He cupped her cheek with one hand and held her hair with the other, holding her close for a kiss already binding him to her. Rough fingertips trailed over her jaw and brushed down over her neck. He lightly pushed a strap from her shoulder, still meeting in languid kisses, before holding her waist and tapping on the back of the garment. She kissed along his jaw, undeterred, before mumbling against his cheek.

“Need a hand?”

“I’m gonna need both,” he replied cheekily, kissing her quickly as his hand left her hair and joined the other. The plan of divide and conquer was successful on the hook and eye fastenings. Pressed to his chest, she slipped an arm between them to hold the cups to herself as his hands retreated to her hips, warm and gripping gently as fingers moulded to her flesh. The other strap fell from her shoulder, gravity itself baring her to him. She combed through his hair one last time before slipping out of the straps and leaving the bra to the side.

Gladio was quick to press her to him, so close their hearts could hold their ever-unfinished conversation again. One hand travelled to the small of her back to hold her flush, as another coursed around to the front, carefully cupping her breast as her lips broke from his. He gave her a quick, checking glance, only to be met by half-lidded eyes that still held her keen edge. She kissed his cheek in approval.

He learned every inch of skin with paced fervour. Rough hands were gentle as they kneaded and squeezed, thumbs brushing over already pebbled flesh in their silken surroundings. His kisses travelled to her throat. He’d never been much of an artist, but he’d paint her, mark the pale skin with dark wine and unspilled blood, if she’d allow it.

Busy lips worked at her neck in slow, sincere waves, sucking and biting gently. No protests came, only hands through his hair and trailing over his back as he lavished his attentions on her. The flesh sparked and warmed in his mouth, soothed numb by a soft tongue. He brushed kisses over to finish, nuzzling against the fresh bruise.

He hadn’t noticed her settling into his lap, the tension of excitement and keen playfulness falling to a softer feel. Gladio pressed a last kiss and pulled back to look at his blossoming rose. There was a calmness to her he’d never seen; even when she slept she hid it under her hair or buried into the bed. A soft frown came over her as cool air glazed the broken vessels under unbroken skin. The look she gave was pleading.

Gladio hummed and gave a nudging kiss, tilting her head the other way to expose her neck for him again. It seemed he’d be tending a garden of winter roses. As he suckled on the warm flesh, her touches craved at the back of his neck, turning his hair between her fingers and brushing faint patterns onto unmarked skin. She breathed a sigh. Gladio grinned against her neck as he buried a hand in dark curls.

The hand on her back stroked to her hip, thumb rubbing circles into her. He tapped on her underwear; simple cotton, nothing elaborate. She nodded. The back of a warm finger pressed against her side, partially slipping under the fabric.

“Sure?” he asked, mumbled over his fresh masterpiece. His lips brushed up, strokes roughened by his stubble as he came to her lips again to meet for a lingering kiss.

“Yeah,” said Rena, quiet but certain.

The back of his finger stroked against her skin, back and forth as she eased. She kissed him deeply, one hand cradling his neck with fingertips at his jaw, before nuzzling against the dark stubble. Open lips brushed his neck, she chose a spot next to his pulse and let instinct do the rest.

“Yeah, that’s it… You got it, just… Little harder,” Gladio guided in breathy whispers as she sucked the softer flesh into her mouth, tongue laving over the freshly shaven remnants of sharper stubble. His hand cradled the back of her head. She became braver. Teeth grazed against him in gentle threat before biting down harder still.

His hissed breath cut through the soft sounds of her bedroom. She let go and looked at him, brows knitted over worried eyes.

“Sorry-.”

“S’okay, it was good,” he assured, nudging her nose with his.

The soft frown held over curious eyes, not completely without concern. “Really?”

“Really,” Gladio nodded. “Might have to get you back for it, though.”

He pressed his forehead to hers as they shared in inhale, breathing the blending of scents with newer elements. Yes, there was honey and leather, pine and lemon, petrichor and smokeless fire, mint and salted sage. The scents twisted around each other, forming a simple braid with the third strand. Neither could place it, but both knew. It was heat, _want,_ even need. It was light and yet heavy and slipped past their minds to coax baser parts.

She could feel hers, curling around in her belly like some soft, twisting creature, padding gently as it settled heavy and warm enough to tug her down closer to him. It was abstract and yet perfectly understood. His own was obvious enough whenever they pressed flush or rocked with each other.

He tapped the silent question against her underwear again, this time at the front. His fingers were carefully mapping her ass, the curve it took from her hip to the juncture on the underside as it met her thigh. The strong palm rubbed up. The entire hand coursed back down and squeezed gently. She nodded before fixing on his neck again, determined to finish putting a mark on him.

His hand slipped into the front of her underwear. Rena tensed, breaking from his neck before she could bite and sitting up away from a warm touch. Gladio paused. He knew to. He gave her a moment before beginning to withdraw his hand. She sank back down slowly. He stayed still, lips peppering kisses to her temple, cheek, jaw, as long as it was _her._

When Rena pressed down, his hand cupped her, immediately moulding warm and careful against her.

“Okay?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay,” he whispered, kissing her temple firmly.

As she settled back into his lap, Gladio leant back to look at her. Her cheeks had flushed, lips wine-red from kisses shared, given and taken, hair mussed slightly, though the difference was negligible. Shadows pooled in her clavicle as she played with his hair, one thumb stroking over his cheekbone. She was wild and soft at the same time, hazy in the intimacy of it all. He wanted to take every moment, every chance, to just feel her, to _learn_ her, in every way.

Those forest eyes remained his greatest challenge. They locked with his earthen tones in a trusting gaze as they held close. He only had to brush against her lips for her to meet him in a fuller kiss. He hummed into it, half-sure he was saying her name in inanity.

His hand moved down, tracing her slit lightly. He was mapping her blind and paying instinctive attention. Gladio’s brows knitted when he found her wet, humming again. A single fingertip gathered the soft slick and drew it up between her lips. The hitching of her breath came as approval, especially when she kept kissing him. He did it again, and her hips angled over his hand.

Rena’s breathing was under his control. Bound by a kiss she could hardly bear to break, even for a moment, each stroke of his finger against her made her lungs fill shakily.

He delved deeper and found her clit. She jolted slightly, breathed and tied herself to him in a kiss. At the drawing of light circles, her mouth fell open against his. He ran his tongue along the underside of her top lip.

“Feel good?”

“Fuck yeah.”

He beamed through his exhale. Gladio met her for sweet kisses, the hand in her hair moving to gently stroke the back of her neck as the other stayed busy. Rena trailed her touches, coursing a light fingertip along his clavicle. It was enough to make him shake and grin at the ticklish touch. He hummed when her hips took up a rhythm all of their own, gently moving back and forth over his hand as he played her slowly.

Her hand splayed over his heart again, feeling it pound as his lips heard hers echo by her throat. Rena coursed down slowly, stroking over the hard muscles softened and calmed by heady atmosphere. She gently grabbed his hips, squeezing one of the rare, softer parts of him. The curves of them just fit in her hands. Fingertips traced over his lower back, the dimples either side of his spine before following his lines back to the front.

She found his waistband. Offering him the same courtesy he’d given her, Rena tapped against his lower belly and pulled the fabric no more than half an inch from his body.

His lips broke from bruising her neck again as he spoke breathlessly. “Go ahead.”

She was paused by a change in his pattern. He moved on from circles and drew continuous infinity instead. Rena tried to reclaim her mind from the dizzying combination of a hand cupping her, another buried in her hair and guiding the back of her neck to leave her open to his affectionate attacks; the lips, tongue and teeth that worked bruises into her neck like time worked a field, leading it to blossom and bear.

Her hand slipped under the waistband. The light brush of curious fingertips had him biting her gently before a laving tongue and sweet kisses worked away the pain. Gladio broke with a sigh when she wrapped her hand around him. Graceful fingers lacked experience, but instinct taught her fast. She gave him and experimental stroke. He was hot, heavy and thick in her hand. Her other hand left his hair and Gladio paused, swallowing as her curiosity got the better of her.

Rena leant back as he slowed the hand in her underwear to a pressing stillness. She withdrew her hand from him. It was enough to make him throb. Months had made him starved, and another’s touch would work magic. He reminded himself that no matter how denied he felt, she’d undoubtedly gone longer without this. Gladio watched with a fond smile as she peered down between them and stretched the waistband of his shorts back.

_“Holy shit…”_

He couldn’t help the snort. “Way to stroke a guy’s ego,” he mumbled to the top of her head as she stayed fixed on it.

Rena looked up at him, keenness sharpening her even as dark eyes held him. She spoke quietly. “You don’t have an ego.”

“No?” he raised an eyebrow.

Gladio pulled her flush to him again, revelling in the warmth of her. A hand at the back of his head lulled dark lashes to shut as the they rubbed the tips of their noses against each other.

“No,” whispered Rena. “Sense of self, yeah, but not an ego.”

“Not sure everyone would agree with you there.”

“They can fuck off.”

Curses had never sounded so soft. She’d taken the thorn of the rose and turned it into a marvel of its own. Snow wasn’t snow without the cold, after all. Her harsher elements were still there, but she smoothed them down, always, for this.

“Damn right.”

They silenced each other with a kiss, pulling apart just enough for their hands to slip down again. Her lips parted against his, permitting his tongue, when he swirled two fingers around her entrance. Fingertips trailed the length of him again. He sighed into her mouth, just as her tongue met his and played, still tentative in its inexperience. Instinct was working wonders.

Gladio tangled his fingers in the dark, soft curls at the back of her head as her own played between his thick chocolate brown locks, his nape and dancing across his shoulders like ice skaters. Her breath hitched again. He pressed steady against her entrance.

“D’you want to?”

She nodded, lips still brushing his. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” he breathed.

He drew circles, making sure to coat himself in her slickness. The resistance was delicious. Gladio pushed slow and careful, mouths opening against each other as two of his fingers slipped in and were surrounded by plush, hot walls, already squeezing around him. All the air left her lungs in a silent, deep breath. She busied at his neck, pouring her thoughts and sounds into a mark that would stay with him longer.

Kiss-swollen, chapped lips dragged achingly slow, warmed by the rose as it bloomed on her neck, darkening from bloody red as time drew on.

This was timeless.

The careful stroke of his fingers was steady and deliberate. The pad of his thumb brushed her clit and had her hips bucking against him.

Gladio took her hints, small but telling as they were. Each graze of her teeth made him press deeper, each hitch in her breath as he curled his fingers, each tensing when he stroked the rosebud, each tug at his hair, always followed by smoothing it down in apology, when he sighed. They gave her away, guiding him until she followed his hand as he led her into slow delirium.

Her hand learned from his. Smooth strokes, squeezing as she pulled. Rena slipped her other hand down, moving his shorts out of the way.

“You sure?”

“Don’t want you making a mess,” she mumbled, smiling against his neck. Gladio nudged until they were forehead to forehead. He spoke, lips brushing hers.

“I’ll make a mess of the sheets this way,” reasoned Gladio.

“I’ve got fresh sheets, you got spare shorts?”

“No.”

“Exactly,” she whispered, voice warm and soft, smirking at the hitch in his breath when she passed a finger over the head of him and worked the smooth slick of a bead of precum over him.  

They never thought it’d be this easy. Already rocking back and forth with each other, the surges of kisses pushing and pulling in craving tides as one move was matched by the other. It had always been that way, but it’d never been this caring. Every throw in the ring, every strike… It was all here. Only different.

All she’d have to do was pull her underwear to the side, be pulled closer and guided down. One of her hands stayed with him. As she drew the next pearlescent plead for _closer, more,_ from him, her other hand left and ghosted over his, joining him under the thin fabric. His mouth fell open against hers. The medley of lips, tongue, teeth, all in gentle harmony came to a pause. Gladio’s hand left her hair and stroked down to the small of her back, pressing her flush to him as she rose up.

The sudden barks of the dogs made them both jolt.

 _“Fucking hell,”_ she cursed under her breath, peaceful expression drawn into a frown as the adrenaline blended with the softer version he’d been tending. He held her steady at the hips, her own hands resting at his.

“The hell was that about?” Gladio wondered aloud, peeking at the closed bedroom door.

They’d fallen silent. Another solid knock at the door sounded the alarm again. Rena sat back in his lap and groaned in defeat.

Gladio caught her gaze with the soft earthen eyes he held with such grace under knitted brows. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just- _nghh,_ ”she gestured to herself with a frustrated growl.

The knocking came again, more urgent.

“Be right there!” Rena called, backing off his lap as he tucked himself away.

Both threw on shirts, with Rena slipping into her jeans as they left the bedroom. The dogs paced up and down the hallway, pawing at the door as the knock became softer.

“I, uh…” Gladio cleared his throat, briefly framing his hands around the tent in his shorts. He pointed a thumb to the bathroom. Rena turned over her shoulder and snorted.

“Sorry,” came as a breathed laugh.

“Nah, it’s fine. All good,” he smiled, brushing a stray curl out of the way and kissing her forehead. “Just- I’ll hide for a minute.”

“Alright, give me a second. It’s probably a pizza guy with the wrong address,” Rena shrugged. “Happens more than you’d think.”

Fingers hooked with each other, Gladio opened the bathroom door and switched on the light. He smiled at the soft mess of her. Blushed cheeks, red lips and hair wilder than usual. He stepped inside as she backed away down the hallway, turning to move the fidgeting dogs and answer the door.

“Hey!”

Slipping back into an unreadable expression, Rena took a deep breath and let her words fall on it.

“Hey, Prom. How’re you doing?”

“Pretty good!”

He was lying. She could tell.

Blue eyes were in darker surroundings, hair fraying from its style as the thick aromas of liquor and cigarettes poured from him. He was only midway through his shift, but it had stopped abruptly tonight. Camera in hand, with pictures taken of others for others, the working environment of a club photographer was exhausting for someone as energetic and nervy as Prompto. Being surrounded by drunk, if not high, people could be terrifying.  

“What happened?”

“Nothing! I just finished early,” he shrugged, a little too expressively. “Thought I’d drop by, see how you were doing, ask how things were with-.”

“Blondie?”

“Hey big guy! How ya keeping? Doing good? You’re here… late.”

“So are you,” he frowned, holding the door open behind Rena. “Everything okay?”

“Y-yeah! Great!”

“Prom, cut the shit and get in,” she jerked her head over her shoulder, admitting defeat for the night.

She knew better when his eyes were that read and his hands that frantic. Prompto stepped inside and crouched to greet the dogs. The door closed quietly. Gladio retreated to the kitchen for a glass of water as she folded her arms and watched the blond, letting silence do its work.

“Prompto…”

“You- you guys weren’t _busy,_ right? I can go! It’s your apartment, I don’t wanna intrude or anything or-.”

“What happened?” she asked, barely above a whisper. Content that Gladio couldn’t have heard anything if he tried, a shaking whisper left the blond as he fought the trembling of his lip.

“They… They called me a Nif.”

Rena sighed deeply as he buried restless fingers in the thick coats of the dogs, unable to look her in the eye for more than a minute. His admission while blind drunk one night had opened up a more secret pathway between them. This was something he trusted her with, and no one else. Not even those closer than her, especially not them when he had so much to prove. Better things to show.

“You know what I’m going to say.”

Prompto looked up, half a smile forced onto his boyish features. “Fuck ‘em?”

“Fuck ‘em.”

A sniff announced Gladio as he stepped back into the room with three glasses of water. He passed them out and took a sip. Another sniff caught cigarette smoke and hard liquors. Dark brows furrowed.

Prompto’s hands were shaking, craving another draw of sour relief and smoke that warmed the core of him. He’d all but kicked the habit, but sometimes he just needed hit. A cigarette was gentler than a fist, and faster than a shot. It would take some convincing to tell him that the light in the dark wasn’t the glowing orange that drew closer with every breath, leaving ash in its wake that was so much easier to shake than his own.

For now, he sipped clarity itself and saw them in the snapshots of glances he was too nervous to hold for longer. Past the colours in their cheeks that made his own flush, the soft tiredness in their eyes that made his widen, and the marks revealed by turning heads and time itself, he saw comfort. Ease. They just fit together. It almost made him feel guilty.

* * *

“You sure about this?”

“Yeah. Piece of cake,” she assured, whistling the dogs back to her.

Rena set them to check the scrub, listening out for growls and digging. The bright clouds of visibility granted by their flashlights showed no signs of flashing, bony creatures, menacing on a close horizon, or glowing eyes with pinned pupils. What they did show was the plumed breaths as it froze on desert air, as fine as feathers and billowing like spilled ink. The dogs trotted in the foreground as shapes too familiar to be threatening.

The unintended brush of knuckles led to intertwined fingers in a warm movement so practiced it was instinct. The air was clear and too dry to be soft. It was like breathing ice as dust, cold and sharp as he sniffed to give some life back to the end of his nose. At least his hand was warm.

A low growl from Ochre came through the quiet of a bitter Leiden night, everything frozen still by the forming ice. They let go as she investigated, assessing the small, almost indistinguishable, hole by the base of a thorn-laden shrub.

“No?” he asked, raising his eyebrows when she stood back up and moved on. The head of curls shook in the dark.

“No. Snake.”

“Eugh,” Gladio tensed slightly, wrapping his hand with hers again.

Rena snorted and kept a watchful eye out as they came to the edge of the scrub, walking out onto bare rock as frost dusted it in cold glitter over the shining veins of minerals. They left the low skeletons of desert lavenders long abandoning their quest to give scent, and creosote bushes still acrid and thin.

The true beauty of the desert was hidden by their own eyes. It was the most oppressive element, more so than the fiery heat of its longest days and the sharp cold of the longest nights. It was endless and pressed down on them. Eyes adjusted to seeing in the torchlight, the rare stars of the night sky were only the beginning.

“Hey,” he said. Gladio was met by curious green eyes, a shade foreign to Leiden winters.

“Hey,” came back with a soft smile. His own echoed it. “Idea.”

“Yeah?”

Rena stood in front of him and stopped them in their tracks. She squinted in the bright light of his torch before reaching up and turning it off. She stopped at her own.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Alright,” she gave one last smile, before plunging them into a momentary darkness.

Their eyes adjusted fast. Night as black as ink poured into swelling pupils and drained the abyss from above them until the stars showed themselves. The shimmered like fish revealed in shallow water, like jewels in rocks exposed by tide. The clouds of galaxies were velveteen and cast in soft sheets. She found his other hand in the darkness as both stared up at the rest of existence. This was about as close to nowhere as they could get.

Gladio leant down and found her blind, nose warmed by her forehead first, before nuzzling down against hers and finally catching her lips. She met him in nowhere, fully hiding with him, even from the stars. The only sensations were mouths against each other, hearts holding their conversation, and hands squeezing with the surges of it. This was theirs and they were silhouettes under the stars.

When they parted, soft frowns matched and pressed against each other. Lips drew breath from the small infinity held between. Parting itself wasn’t painful, but it was far from a pleasure.

“We should probably get back,” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Gladio…” she coaxed, as he stayed rooted to the spot.

“Yeah?” he asked, his question the hoarse ghost of his voice as it fell softer than anything else in the desert night, even the starlight in absence of the moon. Rena could hear the smile.

“C’mon.”

She turned away and switched her flashlight on, still bound to one of his hands as he did the same and followed. The blue spire of the haven cut sharp in a velvet sky, piercing it as it moved and giving it more holes, more stars, glimpses of a brightness beyond. With the dogs loping ahead, they made for the symbols.

“When we get back...” he began. Rena turned to see vulnerability on him, written in gently knitted brows and a careful mouth. “Home… How do you want me?”

Gladio waited for an answer to his question, eyes dark but unthreatening.

“What d’you mean?” asked Rena, soft curiosity tugging at her. He took a deep breath and voiced his thoughts.

“When we get back, if we’re messing around and it goes that way, how do you want me? What do you want me to be?” At her deepening frown and the beginning of a shaking head, he continued. “Got a reputation, you know that.”

“I also know there’s very little grounds for it,” she countered.

“What I’m tryna ask is… what do you want? What part? Do you wanna lead? Do you want me to lead? Do you want nerd, do you want-?”

“ _Gladio_ ,” Rena stressed, stopping him again as she stood in his way.

He looked right at her, trying to read, to give himself a clue, direction or objective. He’d always been conditioned to fill role; it was what he did in every day of his life.

“I wanna make sure this is good for you.”

Rena barely had to think before she met him with bare honesty.

“You. Just you, alright?”

Gladio’s gentle smile creased his eyes. She held sharpness in her expression, a truth as undeniable as steel. This was the knife she handed him, and the hilt read ‘sincerity’.

“Please stop treating it like a big deal,” she shook her head gently as his features softened from their pinched concern. “It’s just a thing. Like riding a bike or catching a fish, or any other shit like that.”

He let his head hang and let it go with the sigh. Rena nudged against his cheek, lips brushing stubble as she whispered.

“Alright?”

His beard scratched against her skin as he moved to kiss her again, a hand warmed in the mess of her hair as her own cupped his cheeks. Lips parted to make way for whispers.

“Alright.”

“Let’s get back.”

They held hands until they could easily make out the haven’s symbols and hear the fire. As they climbed back up onto the base rock, a bundle in a chair spoke.

“Well, hey you two!” Prompto whispered loudly. “How was the da-eetour! How was the detour?” he blurted, chin in his hand and eyes wide as the pair glared daggers at him, then the tent.

“Pretty good,” Gladio said, crouching down to stack the cooler of breakfast items under the makeshift kitchen table. Amber eyes burned with the campfire, sparks setting him bright as they locked on the blond.

“Ah, you’re back. No trouble then?”

“Dead as a stone out there,” Rena confirmed, dodging Ignis as he stepped from the tent. She briefly met Gladio’s eyes before pulling the extra blankets from her rucksack.

“Good, because getting _him_ out of the tent would be impossible. For a moment, it was just Prompto and I, and we’re both too cold to do anything fast,” said Ignis, as he plucked a few cans of ebony and decanted them into a saucepan. He placed it directly on the Cleigne-style log. It was broad and thick, a cylinder standing as it burned. The cuts through it split it like a cake and flames chewed from within. “He gave up the ghost five minutes ago and he’s already dead to the world.”

“It’s a gift,” Gladio snorted, setting himself down into a seat with a huff.

The fire gave his warmer colours back, shining in his eyes as he gave Rena a soft blink. It was hidden from the other as Ignis stood in front of Prompto and handed him a tin mug for the upcoming beverage. She waited until he was moving to Gladio to supply a sleepy blink. The gentler gazes were cut by space between them. Space meant possibility, and they’d decided being seen was not an option yet. They were content to keep their secret, guard it as they guarded others and for once be selfish and hold it for themselves and each other.

Ignis made his rounds again, filling cups with steaming bitter silk.

They were ten feet apart, held there by their own determination and a fire between. The dark mess of her hair let her seep into the night, or it into her until stars were part of her. After a sip, her breath plumed through the air and joined the smoke as a fresher version, like a river meeting the sea. She turned to the dogs at her left as they stood tense and watched some invisible threat in the night. As they eased, Rena glanced at the stars and Gladio was content to let the heavens kiss her.

For now.

* * *

He was heavy.

Relaxed.

With her legs folded underneath her, Gladio had stretched out over the couch with a book in one hand, and her hand in the other as they played on his chest. The dogs slept piled on the armchair. Rena had abandoned her own reading. The prose hadn’t held her. There were other forces at play, more distracting and needful. Cravings.

He turned a page and breathed a sigh, softened with his head on her thigh. Rena glanced at the book.

Two full pages of writing.

She let her fingers play in his hair, as they had been. She followed the waves of the thick, chocolate brown locks, splayed wild. Every now and then, dark lashes would drift, especially when her nails grazed his scalp. A light fingertip around the shell of his ear could earn a gentle smirk. He wore contentment well. He deserved it.

A smile pulled at her features when a line had his brows knitting together, widening soft brown eyes and even parting his mouth as he read on, racing for his answer. He turned the page again. She glanced. Two full pages of writing.

_Let him finish the chapter._

_Then what do we do?_

The answers were already in her mind, but they weren’t words. They were images, sensations, sounds. The sounds were the most teasing. What could she do to his voice? What could he do to hers? How would they sound? What else would there be? Each question was tapped into her like raindrops flecking the window.

Paper flicked.

She glanced.

Half a page.

It fizzed through her like burning ashes, like a new armiger reserved for them. It usually spread from her head, but it was fogged by dizzier things. It bled up, like colour through a petal as it blushed with the summer.

A deep sigh pulled her from distraction. Her focus drifted to him as he paused, hand playing more actively with hers, and gazed up earthen tones. They were steady while she felt wracked with gales, as if it were ripping through her. His eyes calmed it to a breeze.

“Okay?” he asked, voice warm and quiet.

She shook her head to force the words out through a mess of thoughts. “Yeah, just…”

“Just what?” Gladio frowned softly, unspoken questions in his eyes, all concerned. He knotted his fingers with hers and tried, how he tried, to read her.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Her eyes only left his to flicker to the hall, the soft darkness that led to her bedroom. When Rena looked back down, his own gaze returned from the ajar door and the gentle light slipping around it.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, quiet and certain.

Gladio sat up from her lap and let her stand, still joined by their hands. She took a step away and he stroked across her wrist.

“Hey,” he whispered. Rena turned to him. He was still sitting on the couch, eyes as kind as they’d ever been. Gladio spoke with soft concern. “...It might hurt-.”

She smiled and shrugged. “Eh, I’m a big tough girl, I can take it-.”

“Rena,” he said, asking for her attention, for her to consider and make sure. With both of her hands in his and a gentle frown, he looked up at her. “I don’t want it to hurt.”

She softened at him, her own brows pulling together in honest gratitude. “Alright.”

Gladio stood quietly, glancing aside as the dogs slept on, and let her lead him to her bedroom. He shut the door quietly and knew this was always the trickiest part. With her, it was easy.

Hands played with each other as he stepped closer. One coursed up her arm, cradling her neck before he cupped her cheek.

“You sure?” he raised a brow.

“Are you?”

She’d asked it gently enough for him to wonder which heart was beating faster. Deep green eyes searched him for any waver. He was as steady as the ground itself, and there was fire in him. The warm heart hiding under earth was molten gold and a restless river had made it shine,

“Okay,” he croaked, eyes drifting shut as noses brushed together. Still smiling, his lips ghosted over hers. She followed.

Rena’s hand fixed at the back of his neck, twirling in his hair before the surges began. Lips met open and pressed shut. He held close, flush to her as they curved to each other. Gladio was bound to her, not by oath or tradition or generations of loyalty. He was simply bound. Kiss gentle but wanting, she stepped back and took him with her. A warm hand pressed flat against the small of her back, fingers moulded over the curve of her hip as he hooked around her, lips danced, and kisses fell apart into smiles.

Gladio pulled again, tilting upwards, as his other hand slipped down to the back of her thigh, ready to pick her up.

“Don’t even think about it.”

He laughed against her mouth, his smile matched by hers. They stepped towards the bed with each tide of the kiss. She felt the mattress at the back of her legs and stayed bound as they lowered and shifted onto the bed. Gladio sat on his heels and pulled her into his lap, chasing kisses as his fingers became lost in dark curls.

One arm slung over the warmth of his bare shoulder, and the other hand bracing the back of his head, Rena gave a hungrier kiss. He returned with a low hum, hands moving down to fix at her hips. He tapped on her top, the silent question answered in a mumbled approval and the momentary parting from each other. Gladio’s fingertips hooked under the fabric. Hands smoothed out as he worked it up to her waist. He tapped again, on her spine, below the fabric. She nodded. Gladio bunched the fabric in his hands and pulled it up over her head before letting it fall where it would.

Gladio’s mouth fell open at the warmth of her pressed against him. His fingers mapped every softness, passing warmth into firm muscles and making them drowsy with it. Dizzy. Stubble scratched against her fingertips, then palms, as she cupped his cheeks to meet in a craving kiss.

His lips surged forwards, understanding every unspoken word. Gladio followed the movement, hands splayed against her back to keep her close as he lay her down. The mattress dipped by her head. Propped up on a forearm and his knees, his fingertips dragged along the scar on her cheek as he peppered kisses like raindrops. She chased him at the corner of her mouth as his lips made their soft impacts on the scar through her eyebrow, feeling the dent of it run deeper than it appeared. Kisses and eyelashes tickled her nose, cheeks, lips, all while Gladio hummed at the smile she wore.

It was pressed away with another kiss, deeper as she combed her fingers through his hair. Held close underneath him, she could feel him beginning to swell and grow hotter. Need made her kiss his neck, deepening to a grazing bite and suckle on the rough stubble. Roses could bloom through it, she was sure. Unspilled blood was her signature, and one she admired on him and herself. Dark bruises spoke of deeper affection.

Parted lips dragged along her jaw before he kissed over her pulse, feeling it dance through her neck. The warmth of him was enveloping; dizzying. He fixed a hand at her waist before roaming up over the bare skin and cupping her breast, kneading it gently enough for her bites to soften into an open-mouthed smile.

Gladio changed his counterweight. He sucked a bruise into her neck and felt her soften into blissful calm, hazy and sweet. Chapped, full lips skimmed to the base of her throat to give a deeper kiss. He skimmed along the length of her clavicle. Rena’s breathy sigh only encouraged him. Weaving his head from side to side, his mouth swept heat over the unguarded bone, nuzzling against her as his breath came in warm floods.

Pinching a nipple made her hiss. He glanced up under soft brows and thick lashes, checking her expression. The slightly parted lips of anticipation made him smile against her. He continued down and did it again. Each kiss fell like a heavy drop of warm rain; he was a thundercloud, striking her softly.

Centred between her breasts, scent and sensation led him. Rena’s hands loosened in his hair when he took a mouthful of softer flesh, falling back with a quiet exhale while he painted another rose.

A warm tongue passed across already pebbled flesh before circling around the silken surroundings and finally sucking gently. Her slight gasp and arching up against him told him everything he needed to know. The craving mouth moved, travelling in a medley of tongue and lips. He was almost at the other when Rena spoke, gathering his attention immediately.

“This is-,” she shuddered at the tongue laving towards her nipple. “Very one-sided.”

The warmth of his breath flooded over her as the deep chuckle thundered against her skin. Her legs squeezed at his sides. He trailed down, kissing a trail over the softness of her stomach. A fingertip made two distinct taps on her hip, over the fabric.

“Off?” he asked gently, peeking up at her. Rena nodded and gave her hoarse reply.

“Yeah.”

Once again, fingertips hooked under the fabric, bunching at her hips as his lips stayed warm and puckered over untouched skin. He nudged below her navel. The mumbles spread came through her like thunder, enough to make her legs tense for a moment.

“You sure?”

Rena propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. He could only smile at the beginnings of a blush on her cheeks and the mouth that twitched gently.

“Yeah, it’s fine. They can come off,” she assured, her nod letting curls fall over her face.

“Mmh… okay,” he hummed.

She lifted her hips enough for him to pull the underwear down and away. Gladio knelt on the bed to free her legs from the thin fabric and again let them fall where they would. No longer prone, they met in a deep kiss. Her hands chased down the smooth planes of him as deep breaths shook him. She tugged gently at the waistband of his jeans.

Rena’s whisper against his mouth came soft and coaxing. “You too.”

Gladio nodded in the kiss and muttered his reply.

“Only fair.”

The warm beat of laughter was responded by his own. She worked the button and fly before sliding his jeans down past his hips.

“Gimme a sec?”

“Mhm.”

Gladio parted and pushed his jeans off, boxers with them, before he knelt on the bed and let his eyes roam.

In the dim evening light, she was pale and soft. Her hands slowly lost their grip on the sheets. The scars of her, all of them, were bared to him. There were so many scars. A thin diagonal on her ribs told one story, as another on her side told its own.

Some had not been so violent in their creation. They were the marks of growth, of skin unable to keep up with the body as it grew. Some were silvery marks, faded and shining. Others were deeper. They cut into her so gently she’d never felt them arrive. Lightning strikes and stripes coursed over her hips like tributaries, over her lower stomach and the breasts he’d already felt them on.

The water on the window painted her in speckled shadows. She was night, but in opposite. Her stars were dark. Some were the shadows of raindrops, while others were the soft marks of her own skin. They were the pauses of a creator in thought, the ink bleeding from pen to parchment.

The air above her was cold in his absence. Without meaning to, Rena pulled in on herself, legs gathered and forearms concealing her face. The sight of trying to become smaller, to hide from him, pushed an apologetic frown onto his strong features.

Gladio knelt over her and took her hands in his. He gently pried her arms apart, greeted by a single dark eye that made him smile and shake his head. She revealed the other.

“Hi,” he breathed, grinning as she began to relax again.

“Hi.”

Gladio bit his lip and lost himself in her eyes. Evening in a forest was another world. He nudged her once. Rena cracked her own smile and nudged back, twice, and caught him in a kiss that began sweet and quickly deepened. His hand knotted in her hair. Propped up on her elbows, Gladio held her in blissful nowhere.

Something brushed over her hair. When their lips parted, Gladio looked softly at her chest, smoothing his necklace just so on her. He smiled as she wore it, his annotation amongst the scribbled words of love letters her own curls made as they cascaded in a wild tangle. In a blink, his eyes flicked up to meet hers.

“Hold this for me?”

His necklace was warm and heavy against her skin, barely an echo of him but undeniably Gladio. Rena nodded and breathed a laugh.

“Alright.”

“Alright,” he returned, finishing his whisper with another kiss.

He travelled back down again, lips falling on her like rain on water, their ripples warm and spreading from every touch. Rough fingertips couldn’t have been gentler as they traced the lines of her sides, finding each harsher mark to be just a little more than skin deep.

“Don’t…mind me…just gonna…mosey on down…” he spoke between kisses, inching lower. Her laugh had him smiling against soft skin.

Gladio dragged his lips over the more violent memories, the sharper cuts of crueller moments. Those that had taught her life’s harsher lessons, ones even he was yet to learn in ways.

Their eyes drifted shut. One warm hand roamed down the back of her thigh as his mouth found the beginning of her biggest scar, just below her hip. The achingly slow drag of chapped, kiss-swollen lips along the wrought flesh made it hard to breathe. It was as if his open-mouthed kisses were closing it up, wiping it clean as if it had never happened. The scar ended just above her knee, but his lips remained. Callouses were careful as he held the back of her calves and pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, both question and plea.

Rena’s legs parted to him, and he refused to leave her cold. Rough stubble and soft lips travelled up her thigh in a blend of nuzzles and kisses, scratching her as much as he salved while a slow palm eased up the other leg. Anticipation put goosebumps through her skin. The warm spread of his hands smoothed it from her thighs as he found the juncture between hip and leg. That sensitive valley binding of muscle to bone earned a few roses. Bliss bled into her with every drop from broken vessels, making the void above her less threatening, or herself braver.

A lower kiss fell warm and soft, an inch from where she needed him. He was teasing, and he knew it. The warmth of his breaths fell in cycles, like summer as the moments dragged into eternity, the passing of seasons and years as he paused.

Gladio looked up and mapped her. Every peak, valley, scar ripping through her and others running like streams. He watched indistinguishable ribs move around eager lungs, beating slow like a bird’s wings.

The tide of his breathing against her was temptation itself. Rena propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him. A soft smile pushed at his lips when he was witness to her flustered, doe-eyed expression. The sight of him between her legs made her thighs tense and that strange beast curl in her gut.

The chaste kiss to the top of her slit stole the air from her lungs. It was the lightning strike after years without a storm.

The slow, flat lick of a warm tongue along the length of her made Rena’s head fall back. A craving groan left him at the taste of her. She was soaked already. He began to rut against the bed, feeling his own need press between his belly and the sheets.

He smoothed a hand up, directly between her breasts before trailing back down as she arched. Rena could manage little more than breathing as his tongue swept from side to side, from entrance to the sensitive bundle of nerves that made her gasp. His stubble scratched against her, just past tickling.

She almost bit through her lip when he sucked her clit into his mouth. The pull of it, soft lips wrapped and holding her as he flicked the tip of his tongue had already closed eyes rolling back.

A whine threatened to leave her when he drifted down, tongue delving between her folds to push inside, as deep as he could go. Gladio put his jaw into delivering this pleasure, each lap and lave reinforced, grazing her with stubble as he circled her entrance. He licked the length of her with the flat of his tongue.

Rena didn’t know what to do with her hands. She was afraid she’d tear his hair out. They fisted in the sheets, at times hard enough for her nails to dig into her palms. The warmth of him… How could he surround her and yet barely be there at all? The hands on her hips moved with her, holding her still during her quicker movements.

Gladio’s eyes had drifted shut. All he knew now was the taste and smell and feel of her, soft, smooth and soaking wet. He hummed deeply, craving every moment as he suckled at her rosebud. His teeth grazed it. They stayed above and below as she held perfectly still, quiet and panting while he frayed her mind. This was the thread and he was pulling, undoing her with every action. He released her and returned with a kiss that soon drew the bundle of nerves back into his mouth.

Her thighs clamped around his head. He pulled gently, just prompting her to relax and open up again. He’d almost forgotten the strength of her. Gladio peered up, able to see the bruises he’d gifted and the parted lips of pleasure.

_She could break your neck right now._

It slowed but didn’t stop Gladio. He had a solid argument.

_Then make her feel good._

Still rutting against the bed, his skin and the sheets dampening with every desperate drop that left him, Gladio wrapped an arm around her thigh and hitched her leg over his shoulder. He drew the other hand under his neck. His tongue swirled around her clit as he mimicked the action with two fingers against her entrance.

He pushed in with one smooth movement. The gasp drew a pleased groan from him, as if her own intake of breath had pulled his from him in symphonic balance. Rena was already squeezing around him, walls fluttering as he caressed the soaked silk of her and pushed until his knuckles were wet. He was desperate to draw a sound from her, even though there was beauty, a fragility contradicting her nature, in every gasp and breath and sigh she gave.

A whispered curse had never sounded so soft.

He found the combination that made her tense and arch and kept it. Fingers drove deep and slow, as kiss-swollen lips closed around a swollen bundle of nerves.

Rena could feel it pulling. She knew the feeling, but never this intensity. His mouth never stopped. The entirety of existence was his tongue, lips, stubble, fingers, hands, hums, growls and the bloody rags tying deep in her belly as the creature twisted on itself. It was close. Desperate and craving him, more of him, she fixed a hand in his thick hair. A light tug she never intended drew a moan against her sex.

She bit back every sound of her own, every whine and keen that would cut through the quiet. It was so close. Her free hand was restless, clawing at the sheets.

Until rough fingertips met her palm and spread, twining with hers and squeezing.

Already lost in the darkness of closed eyes, it really was nothing but sensation, sound and the simple knowledge that he was there.

“F-fuck…”

Her whispered curse was met by a soft hum as he kept on.

“Gladio, I’m- fuck… _Gladio…_ ”

It didn’t rip or tear through her. It surged like their deepest kisses, flooding up from him and drowning her. She couldn’t breathe, see, think, _know_ anything. Tensed and euphoric, her hips ground against his mouth and hand. It was blinding pleasure.

He eased her through it, slowing down with her and smoothing the subtle gush of release against sparking nerves. The aftershocks made her gasp as she finally remembered to breathe again. The fist in his hair loosened. Rena combed through it as his tongue slowed, drawing smooth lines from entrance to clit, each stroke making her shake again. One final chaste kiss to her clit and he let her be.

“Hey,” he croaked.

Rena opened her eyes and smiled at the mess of him. Eyes half-lidded and burning, she’d pulled his hair into disarray. His cheeks held the lightest blush, barely visible, but felt hot against her palms. He licked his lips before leaning down for a kiss. She met him hungry and craving, tasting herself on him from a soaked mouth and chin. Rena hummed, and was met by a deeper echo from his chest. Whispers passed between them.

“You can- _mmpfh_ \- be as loud as you want, y’know?” he coaxed between kisses.

A broad smile pushed at kiss-swollen lips. “Then why are you whispering?”

He grinned and nuzzled against her nose. “Fair point.”

Her legs squeezed at his hips. She could feel him at her thigh. Thick, heavy and warm; enticing. Gladio spoke between kisses.

“Want me to get a condom?”

Fingers lost in his hair and dizzy, she shook her head. Rena opened her eyes to meet a gentle frown.

“You sure?”

“Just you.”

There was an openness to her eyes, as if he could finally see a trail, some way, into the woods. That whisper had more command to it than anything he’d ever heard. She’d said it so softly. Gladio surged down for a deep kiss, hungry and trying to say words he didn’t even know, sincerities and promises, all in one insistent gesture.

Lost in his lips, and how she tasted on them, Rena’s gasp narrowed to a squeak when Gladio pulled her up to sit in his lap. The fright of that alone kept her straddling his hips, tense for a moment before another languid bite to her throat made her melt. Gladio’s warm chuckle shook through his back before he mumbled against her cheek.

“Y’okay?”

The sound left her far smaller and shakier than she meant it to. “Uh huh.”

Gladio watched as her brows gathered in a frown, caught off guard by her own meekness. Her eyes closed with a bashful laugh while she shook her head and met his soft gaze upon opening. Already swollen lips met and danced as skin bound. He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him.

Met by solid warmth, tension fell from her like sheared threads. Rena lost her fingers in his hair, her mouth to his own and herself to Gladio, in entirety. As she sank lower in his lap, the head of his cock dragged slow and hot against her thigh. The hitch it put in his breath gave her a grin she’d only ever known drunk, but it was Gladio that broke the kiss.

Thick brows knitted in the dim, soft light of her bedroom, over the gentlest, deepest eyes she’d ever known.

“You sure?”

Eyes fixed on his and a certain nod was enough for both of them.

His hips were warm and solid between her thighs. He busied himself with painting another bloody rose on her neck, rutting against her slowly. The bliss of it nearly closed his eyes for him. He fought to keep them open, to make sure she was alright. She could feel him twitch, fighting to keep still underneath her while his heart hammered so hard, she was sure she could hear it.

A surging kiss that rocked them both lined him up.

For all the heat that ran through his body, it was concentrated there. Smooth and slick against her, Rena lowered ever so slightly; just enough to feel him push. Her lips fell open against his and after one last gentle suck to her bottom lip, Gladio watched in equal rapture and caution.

“You’re okay just… Just take it easy, alright?”

Inky pupils in emerald rings didn’t hide anything. Curiosity was the spark flying from a hotter flame, one that begged _closer. More._

The strong arm hooked around her waist did nothing to pull her down; if anything, he held her up and slowed her descent. Gladio fought bliss to keep his eyes open as she sank into his lap and struggled to tighten around him. Every inch tested her, smooth and hard enough to stretch her out until her breath shook and she hid in his neck.

Slipping into the euphoria of it, Gladio’s breathy moan came with a hand in her hair and a kiss to her temple.

“Breathe… You don’t have to- _hhhaa…”_

As Rena forced herself to take all of him, his name came through gritted teeth, somewhere between a threat and a prayer. His stubbled throat scratched against her lips. He wrapped around her, pushing the heel of his hand into her back as he stroked up and down, soothing the tensed body while she changed to hold him.

“You okay?”

“Holy fuck…” came as a hot, breathless whisper over his pulse.

Gladio cupped her cheek and guided her from the crook of his neck. Brows knitted and eyes glazed, the open lips were too tempting as they twitched towards a smile.

Still dizzy and learning him as discomfort morphed into something else, Rena met all the fire in his kiss with a hum. Heat pooled low in her gut, flames as soft and licking as tongues. Something full. Bloody without bleeding. It was the satisfaction of a stretch and all the sparked warmth it set under her skin.

The kiss broke away as gentle as shed petals.

“You feel so good,” he whispered against her lips, the back of his finger caressing her neck. He interrupted himself with a kiss as dark lashes fell shut over heady eyes. Gladio shook his head as the thought took root. “So damn good…”

Rena could feel her own pulse flutter and race against it. Tempted by curiosity but driven by craving, she tentatively rolled her hips, and then came fascination. Gladio’s brows pinched together, lips parted with a rougher breath. His hands, one on her hip and another between her shoulder blades, pulled her closer.

She moved again, and the stroke of him against her walls pushed a whine through her throat. Gladio pressed his forehead to hers and matched her; breath for breath, pulse for pulse and lips ghosting over hers. The adoration in brown eyes was as bare as his skin as he cupped her cheek. Rena leant into the touch, only for his hand to get tangled and lost in her hair. Mouths met starved and danced in the sanguine saccharin. A rough hand gently held her hip and squeezed at the softness over hard muscle and strong bone.

“Lemme feel those hips,” he coaxed, barely above a whisper.

Rena chose her pace, slow and smooth and thorough, always taking him deep and memorising every pulsing detail of him, as his hand guided her. Back and forth, back and forth until her rhythm levelled into a continuous wave. Held tight, she could feel her own lungs struggle to fill. With hips flush and skin softened by sweat, she fixed her hands in his hair and met his gaze between kisses.

Symmetry was ever pleasing. Both sets of brows knitted, lips parted by the subtle cream of pleasure as it turned the world into silk and wine. Half-lidded eyes held the drowsy connection. Their scents blended to intoxicating degree, ambrosia was honeyed leather, the pine and petrichor with sage to its name, woven with that final scent of musk, of sex and need.

“Gladio… _Fuck…_ Does it always feel this good?” she breathed.

Eyes all but closed, he nuzzled against her nose and let his voice carry every note of soft gravel he had. He let it fray and tease her.

“Wish it did… I hope it does…” he said through a smile.

Ecstasy was slow, wreathing them in ivy and the trickles of rain. Every texture of him passed under her fingertips; the thick, soft strands of his hair, how soft and warm his cheek was, the grazing stubble and down to the solid heat of his chest. Muscle at rest had pleasant give and the pounding under her palm was both summon and pledge. It was feverish and begging, and it fascinated her.

Gladio slipped his hand over hers and wound their fingers together. Another deep kiss ended in a louder moan. The hoarse edge of her voice, of the cut glass under whiskey’s silken heat, made his hips buck. Rena gasped and clung to him. He pressed his forehead to her temple and wore a worried frown.

“Shit- you okay?”

She met him head on and tilted her head in a way that made him ache. “ _Please_ do that again.”

“Feel good?”

“Fuck yes, _please…”_

Gladio huffed a smile. “Okay… You keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll meet you halfway. Alright?”

She nodded and kept to her smooth hip rolls, heat slick over the thick length of him. As she rocked forward again, Gladio pushed in half-thrusts, but it was enough to part her lips further and feel her nails scrape against his scalp, enough to make his eyes drift shut.

Walls fluttering around him, already squeezing as pleasure and bloody sweetness curled in her belly, each time he bucked gently, it became harder to keep her eyes open, her mouth shut, and herself quiet.

“ _Ahhh fuck…”_ she moaned out, head falling back as hedonism shared her with him.

His hips snapped up, driving into her as she took him, again and again until she was dizzy with it. He painted another bloody rose on Rena’s neck, just under the jaw, and let his stubble scrape as he drew back to meet her in a deep kiss.

Release was building in her, pleasure like whipped cream spread by the palette knife of hips grinding against each other, layer upon layer. Each time she tightened, it was as though he was bolder, outlined inside her, even if only by her own limits. The melody that left her, that quiet song given to the little infinity between pairs of lips was so sweet it could barely have been sin. She came closer with every stroke of him against her, and every detail she discovered as heat pooled. Rough whispers of sweet nothings coaxed the sanguine liquor in her belly to catch fire and burn with him.

“You feel so damn good…Holy shit… I wanna feel you when you- _ohhh_ fuck… Rena…”

He’d made her name into embers and guided her to the burning edge. Her hips ground harder against him, every roll came with a squeeze as his hand coursed over warm skin turned hot. He couldn’t decide; waist, hip, ass, thigh. He chose cheek for one hand, cradling her jaw in his palm as the joint flexed with every higher sound that left her in need.

Open lips matched to hers, he had to remember to give his little thrusts, his end of the deal as she started to unfurl in his hands. She unravelled, even as he held her.

“You gonna come?”

Breathless, she nodded.

“Mmmh that’s it, just let it- _fuck­_ – let it take you… I got you, okay?”

“Fuck- _Gladio…”_ The sweet whine made his hips stutter.

“It’s alright…” He nodded, meeting her for a kiss that defied the desperation ruling her hips. “ _Oh… Rena please…”_

 _“F-fuck!”_ was little more than a whisper, but it was the last cohesive she managed before she curled into him. Rena came until she couldn’t breathe, held close as the strength of it made her take him with sharper need. He fucked her through it and kept steady as she lost all cognition.

When she surfaced from it, her hips slowed from their frantic chase and lips met his with a hum that sounded his name. Rena was still dizzy on the pleasure that had made every nerve fizz when he smiled between kisses.

But the hand on her hip slowed her down until he held her still. Her brows gathered into a frown as she searched earthen eyes.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

Close and warm as bodies stayed bound, she squeezed their intertwined fingers and shrugged lightly. She’d only just opened her mouth to speak, but Gladio couldn’t help himself. The kiss was a slow, sweeping dance, careful and craving until they were lost to each other. When they parted she spoke against his open lips and he’d never heard her sound so soft and quiet, but with so much innocent conviction.

“I wanna make you come… You made me and… I wanna know what it feels like. What you feel like.”

Already breathless, Gladio lost the last of the air in his lungs to her. Unable to find words, he shook his head and grinned in disbelief.

“ _That_ is somehow the sweetest and hottest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“So far,” Rena countered, voice warm and hoarse. His stubble grazed in a tease when she spoke against his cheek. “What do you say?”

“Mmh…” He trailed off, meeting her for a kiss. “You got one more in you?”

“Course.”

Eyes locked, Gladio smirked softly and kissed the corner of her mouth, just as she began to move again, hips rocking over his as he throbbed between her legs.

“What’s your record?” he chuckled.

Arms slung around his neck and lips teasing his, she gave her answer. “Eight.”

Gladio’s half-thrusts stopped. He left his mouth open and frowned.

“How… I mean _woah_ but… Holy- _why?”_

“It was cold and I had nothing better to do,” she laughed, shoulders gathered in a small shrug.

Gladio laughed with her and shook his head. He hummed when she kissed him again. The roughness of his voice was sparks around a flame and how it teased. Hips matched in slow rhythm, Rena caught his brow when it raised. His hands smoothed up her thighs until they rested at her hips. Arms still slung over his shoulders, she leant back a little to look at him.

“Mind if we switch this up a little?”

Rena shook her head gently as she bit her lip. “What did you have in mind?”

In one swift movement, Gladio gripped her hips and lunged forwards, setting her on the bed and himself still between her legs. She clung to him for a moment before her head fell back with a warm laugh. His own deeper rendition, shaking him to the chest, rose from him. They met in a hummed kiss.

“This you being the big manly man?” she asked through a smirk.

“Nah… Had a cramp brewing.”

“Oh sure.”

“I did, okay?” he growled sweetly, lips dragging up her neck.

“Course…” she nodded, fingers carding through his hair as she angled her hips underneath him. Rena plucked tone from the velvet atmosphere and gave her voice a smoothness with heat that both had only ever known from glasses of wine. “Never said being the big manly man was a bad thing...”

He nipped at the skin under her ear, enough to earn soft gasp. “Tease.”

A warm beat of laughter in her throat was enchanting enough, but Gladio wanted to see. He planted his hands either side of her shoulders and propped himself up to look at her.

The moon had made her debut of the evening, outshining the city where stars couldn’t and flooding through the window in white satin. It made her skin glow. Her cheeks were flushed to a dusky rouge; a shade shared on her chest. It was wine staining through parchment. The blood of the lamb staining its own fleece. It was as though her heart had burst and bled without ever spilling a drop. She was laid out underneath him, in blood and body. With his necklace amongst her curls, his annotation to the letter he was learning to read, this was communion.

Her eyes creased with a smile and it made Gladio wear his own. A tiny snort left her as she reached up and played with his hair.

He spoke through a smile. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head gently.

Gladio’s strong features were held soft. Gravity had pulled a little of his hair forwards until it flopped forwards. She combed it back, but it kept dropping down again. His cheeks had flushed slightly. Petal soft lips had smoothed and swollen with kisses and bites. The sound of his stubble under her nails when she dragged slowly was a tease to both of them. Just to toy with him, she scratched at the dark hair under his chin and relished the sound.

“You having fun?” He raised an eyebrow as he fought a smile.

“Mhm,” she hummed. Rena wiggled her hips a little and watched his expression loosen at the bliss. “Wanna have more?”

“You know it…” he craved, surging back down to bind her in a kiss. She hummed her approval, and the game began again.

Heavy and solid above her, Gladio propped himself on his forearm as he cupped her jaw with the free hand. Still halfway inside, her breath caught when his hips pressed. A new angle gave him presence.

She was drowning him and had no intention of learning to breathe again. Surrounded by his skin, scent and sounds, from deep growls to breathy sighs, it was easy to get drunk on him. Rena’s brows gathered with a soft moan as every inch of him dragged at her. The groan he let out when he was fully seated again lit her up.

Each hushed the other with kisses between wordless sonnets. Legs spread wide by his hips, Rena wrapped them to his sides and writhed underneath him. He twined their fingers and pinned her hands to the bed as hot lips dragged over hotter flesh, the drumming of her pulse and the fevered skin of her chest.

A knot tied itself in her gut with the bloodied rags of the last. It was soaked silk that slipped over itself and bound in dizzy intimacy. A rough grunt under her ear was made her tense, taut and primed as her back arched like a drawn bow.

“Ohh fuck… Gladio…”

“Uh-huh?” He fit the question between thrusts and their growls.

Rena shook her head, dizzy and drunk on it and spoke with a soft hoarseness. “Just don’t stop… Please don’t fucking stop…”

Breathless, he smiled against her lips and got high on another kiss. A harder drive from his hips had her nails dig into the back of his neck. She smoothed the skin and tried to catch enough breath to apologise. The arch of her back was only drawn further when he slipped an arm under her waist and held her flush to him. Hips rolled over each other, constantly grinding to stay as close and deep as they could while each dragged against the other.

He was throbbing, searingly hot and every strong twitch of his cock made her squeeze around him. Both open-mouthed and lost to it, the parted lips traced each other in an echo of a kiss.

“How d’you want it?” he asked breathlessly, eyes locked on her as her own drifted shut. Forest green eyes flew open and fused his gaze with hers.

“More… Just more- _ohh gods, Gladio!”_ Rena whined, clinging to him as restraint began to burn away from both of them.

 _“Fuck_ … You know how good you sound?”

He was answered by a keen as she threw her head to the side. He latched onto her neck, painting dark bruises across her throat, clavicle, before he swept back up to become ashes in that kiss. Smooth and strong, Rena couldn’t help but writhe under him. Every touch, tug and push of him drove her closer. The breaths huffed against her neck between longer groans were sinful chorus. Restraint was rope, and they were burning it away.

It was different. They chased it, _hunted it,_ in bloody pursuit of satisfaction and satiety. Each became wilder, baser and instinctive. They were going to catch it for themselves and each other. It would be a bounty shared. Every moment bound them closer. The fingers in his hair and legs around his back were roots, holding him to her as he gave solid presence.

She caught him in another kiss. It fell away with open mouths and sweet, craving moans from both of them. Every thrust he gave was met by her own hips rolling to meet him. Limbs tangled, their eyes met and locked. The essence of each other could’ve dripped between them. He let out a craving groan when pleasure drew across her like a bow over strings and made her sing.

“ _Nngh… Gladio, please!”_

Chest heaving, he could feel the blood dripping low in his gut churn until it was thick and hot. “You with me?”

Without leaving his gaze, she nodded. That alone was enough for Gladio to dive into a kiss. Each moan given by one echoed back from the other as lips, tongue and teeth played. Ecstasy was desperate and addictive; it was sweet poison.

They watched each other lose it, each coaxed by the sight, scent, sound and sensation of the other as flush bodies pulsed for the high. Gladio gave her the kill the moment he said her name in hoarse rapture.

“Fuck- _Gladio!”_

It burst through her. It was deafening, silent, bright and blinding. Every fibre of her tensed as though loosening would make her lose it. Her vision blackened at the seams as her hearing became dull and crackled. Oblivion was addictive.

Gladio’s hips stuttered. He came deep with a heated groan, brows pinched together with his face hidden against her neck. The arm he’d hooked around her waist tugged her onto him. Each pull of release forced another growl from him until they faded to whines and panted breaths.

Dizzy from her high, Rena tried to focus. It was silken but hot, slick and yet sticky. Molten gold poured against satin. With barely any room for it, the already soaked skin between them was met by a steady, oozing drip coaxed out by unintended twitches.

Chests heaving, Gladio pressed his forehead to hers and simply shared presence and sensation. She was dizzied by how warm, heavy and strong, but gentle he was. As soft and delicate as his namesake. Their lips met with shared hums, both hoarser than before. Kisses had always been more important than breathing; it was sweet suffocation.

“Guess what we just did,” he beamed, feeling the stardust of returning sensation fizz around his nerves.

Her breathless laugh was enough to draw a warm chuckle from him. Rena opened her eyes to the soft earthen hues, careful and kind. A mind as messy as her hair couldn’t manage much more than a grin and another kiss as her fingers squeezed his and laced through his hair.

“How d’you feel?” he asked, kissing the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t fuckin’… Enlightened? I don’t know!”

They shared laughs between kisses, both softening while the high wore off. Gladio buried a hand in her hair and kept her mouth busy as he turned onto his back and took her with him. As they caught their breath in a boneless heap, lips pressed to her temple.

“You okay?”

Rena shook her head and settled on his chest, arms slung about his neck as she played with his hair. “Kinda shaky.”

“Like might-black-out shaky?”

“Only if I stand up.”

Gladio snorted a laugh. “That good, huh?”

“That was fuckin’ good,” Rena nodded., tone falling blunt as drowsiness softened the edge from it.

They nudged noses and fell into a sweeter kiss, limbs tangled and warm bodies stuck by slick, sweat and the need to stay close. Gladio softened slowly, but a second slip of release from her was enough to draw his brows together.

Cheek resting on his chest, Rena caught the change in expression and formed her own worried frown.

“What?”

“Nah, I’m just… Shit, did you want me to pull out?”

Rena shook her head. At his gentle concern, she yawned and spoke. “I’ve got the pill. It’ll be fine.”

His eyebrows rose. Gladio kissed her temple and wrapped his arms around her as she lay heavy and warm. The two couldn’t have been closer.

“How long you been waiting on me taking you to bed?” he teased. Gladio let his fingers disappear in her hair as soft, cosy lips pressed to his neck and the bruises she’d given him. “Somebody thought ahead.”

“One of us had to,” she shrugged.

He huffed a laugh and turned to meet her in a kiss. “Yeah, I guess... You okay?”

“Mhm…You?”

“Never better,” he smiled.

When she pecked a kiss to the tip of his nose, he scrunched up with a laugh. Her eyes creased before they took a moment to simply look at each other. Brown eyes met green with utter adoration, soft and quiet.

Rena nuzzled into his neck as Gladio rested his cheek against her head, lulled to sleep by the scent of her hair. Nestled close and slowing down, sleep drew about them like sheets. They stayed half-awake, for a time. Not ready to let go yet. Soft eyes and careful touches mapped each other again. They fell asleep tangled, entwined in each other; forest binding earth, and earth holding firm for it.

He was warm. That was the first sensation when he woke up. Soft, glowing warmth.

The next sense to guide his mind behind closed eyes was scent. He could smell her. He knew he was in her bed by the depth of honey, pine, petrichor, all the way down to the aromas he could never define but simply knew as hers. Fresh and damp, somehow clean, like the air hanging over a river. There was a smokier tone. Musk. Sex.

Her breath was warm on his arm. Curls tickled at his side. Rena was pressed flush to him, nestled into his side as she lay on her front.

Gladio pried his eyes open and blinked the haze of sleep away. He swallowed through a dry mouth and mapped her, making sense of the sensations. Her head was on his shoulder, facing away under a mess of dark hair. One arm was tucked beneath her as the other stretched up, fingers half twined with his.

He played with the sleepy hand before following the lines of her. Light circles were drawn on her shoulder, curls twirled around his fingers and soft skin stroked carefully. Gladio paused when she took a deep breath.

Head shaking, he let the smile come freely as the light of a crisp winter dawn made her glow in honey and cream. She was still asleep, and soft before she put her armour on for the day. Open and warm.

Another deep breath came as she turned her head. Drowsy lips mapped him blind. Clumsy kisses followed his collarbone to the base of his throat, before up towards stubble and guided to chapped lips. Her own were soft and creamy with sleep. Between kisses, Gladio smiled at the innocent, sweet mess of her. Messy curls were wild, falling over her face until it was just the tip of her nose and her mouth.

He hummed a laugh and moved her hair out of the way.

“Mornin’.”

“Mmm,” came hoarse as lips pressed to his cheek. Rena hid in his neck as he stroked the back of hers.

“C’mon, lemme see you,” he smiled.

Another half-groan came from his exhausted companion. Rena drew a deep breath, full of his scents, and lifted her head. Dark lashes parted slowly, half-blinded by the sudden light as brows drew together. A few blinks gave her focus. The soft attention of deep green made him smile fondly.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” she whispered. A sniff made her scrunch her nose. “Eugh… Morning breath.”

“Me or you?”

“Both.”

“Morning _after_ breath,” he grinned, kissing her temple quickly.

Rena grumbled and let her head fall on his shoulder again.

“C’mon, we’ve gotta get up- wait, what time is it?”

“Fuck knows...” she mumbled into his skin. She was moving. A pale hand returned from blindly searching her bedside drawer and held up a pack of gum. Gladio made a mildly impressed face and took the pack, plucking out a stick for her.

“Here,” he said, holding the gum between finger and thumb while he rubbed her cheek with his pinkie.

“Thanks.”

Both chewed quietly as mint burned through the heavier scents lining their mouths. The fresh taste roused her further, until she propped herself up on her forearms and looked at him. Strong lines were lazy in the morning, the tanned skin of his neck bearing her bruises. Dark hair was messier than usual, but nowhere near as wild as hers.

Both had a honeyglow, the peachy softness to them only granted by harsher intimacies. It was rain _and_ shine that made flowers grow, after all.

Gladio could see her throat. Dark wine stains and bloody roses were stark against the pale skin. She wore them well as they splayed over her clavicle. He fixed a hand in her hair and stroked at the thick curls.

_It’s time for a run._

_No…_

Her first question was spoken softly but hit him like a kick to the head.

“Was I alright?”

Gladio frowned softly, before smiling in sincerity.

“ _You_ did great, but that’s not the point. As long as you enjoyed it, s’okay by me,” he assured, thumb stroking over her cheek. The small smile she gave was returned by his own. “Was _I_ okay?”

Rena puffed out her cheeks and widened her eyes, before shaking her head with an incredulous smile.

“I… Uh, you were perfect,” she thought out loud, mind still messy. “Still kinda… Are...”

The confirmation came with a nod and blushed cheeks that made him grin and chase her for a kiss.

“Smooth talker.”

“Coming from you? I should probably be flattered or something,” she mumbled against his lips. The sheer comfort and bliss of it had her growing heavy with sleep again.

_Run._

_I don’t wanna._

Gladio was fighting the discipline and routine he’d known for years. Gravity was stronger in that room, that bed, with her. She had a pull to her. The satin ropes that had wound around them the night before, so tight they’d tensed and burst in their bonds, had turned to soft linen and cotton that nestled them in messy sheets. This was a heavenly battlefield, more peaceful by morning. Hard to leave behind.

He took a deep breath and kissed her again. Rena was falling back into the gentle arms of sleep, carried by bliss.

_Run._

“I’m gonna go for a run, okay?”

The response was grumbled.

“Back soon,” he promised, pressing another kiss to the soft warm cheek.

He was careful leaving the bed, just to make sure he didn’t wake her. Gladio made it all the way to the bedroom door. The cold metal was hard and unyielding in his hand. His second mistake was turning around to check on her.

Sprawled tall and strong amongst chaotic sheets, she was still and peaceful, warm with that pale autumnal glow and hair tying her to her wilder roots as curls splayed across the bed and her shoulders. The hand searching the cosy sheets he’d left in his absence made his chest cave as much as pride swelled in it for her. Instinct had served her well and taught her fast. For all her flaws, she was perfect.

A scratch on the other side of the door demanded his attention. He opened it a crack. Both dogs were outside, eagerly sniffing at the opened space. Gladio bit the inside of his lip and glanced at her again.

_Screw the run._

He slipped out of the room, threw on his clothes, leashed the dogs and took them outside for their morning necessities. The chill in the air made him ache for bed, her bed, or maybe just her. Frost glazed the wrought iron of the railings outside. Gladio snuck back in, fed the dogs and padded back to the bedroom, reduced to his boxers.

Rena shifted and hummed when the mattress dipped at her side.

“Hey…” she croaked. “Quick run.”

“Yeah. Cold as Shiva’s tits out there,” he said, shimmying down into the still warm sheets. Tanned fingers stroked her hair. “Got you something.”

“What? Why?” asked Rena. She lifted her head from the bed and let it rest on his chest.

“Just because. And look, it’s nice.”

Rena opened her eyes to look at him. He winked gently before glancing to the table at his side of the bed. She peeked over without moving her head. Two mugs steamed lazily, carrying the gentle uplifting scent of coffee. There were glasses of water too, and toast with eggs. Scrambled.

“Made it myself.”

Too drowsy and touched to conjure words, the best she could do was meet him with minted lips. He smiled against her as he deepened the kiss and gathered her into his arms before letting her sit at his other side, legs over his. Her hands left him for a moment to pull the necklace over her head and back onto him. It was returned through a kiss; the same way it had been given.

“Pill, milady?” he offered holding out an egg cup with a tiny pink pill inside it.

“Cut the lady shit… And yeah. Please,” she conceded, downing the pill with half a mouthful of water.

They gathered the plate into their shared lap and sipped coffee. A light whimper interrupted soft words. Two heads were pressed to the sheets, watching food being lifted to mouths with round eyes.

“Fuck it,” she shook her head.

Rena patted the bed and the dogs jumped on, sniffing the new scents before lying down and waiting on scraps. They pawed at the human legs and tilted their heads.

“You spoil ‘em,” he murmured into her neck, kissing the sparking warmth of one of his gifted bruises.

“You spoil me,” Rena countered, turning to meet him in a kiss that tasted more like coffee. Like mornings.

“Could say the same about you.”

The whispers against lips were interrupted again as Ochre whined. Seyna had snuffled closed, crawling across the sheets before giving Gladio her sweetest look. It only took a moment to work.

“Yeah, screw it.”

They finished with the food, left small morsels of egg and set the plate down in front of the dogs. A drop of drool left Ochre as they waited on approval. A small hand gesture from Rena was all it took. The plate was licked clean before the dogs settled around them, heads in laps and ears scratched as coffee and water passed the early morning with soft words.


	15. Contentment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Affections unbridled and living in the ignorant bliss of it, Gladio and Rena continue to reinforce their bond as a couple, and a hunt gone awry tests this new connection.

Ochre’s head rose to the height of another cry, before he set it back down on the sofa, across Seyna’s legs as she stretched. He kept his eyes on the bedroom door, and the thin seams of light either side that gave no hint to the concealed pair within.

They were hiding from the world. From duty. From life. From everything but ignorance and the sheer, intoxicating bliss of it. These were their hours and were seldom wasted.

Another whine had the dog grumbling as he stretched back and settled with a bored huff.

Sound slipped around the door and flooded down the hallway, though it was easy to follow to the source...

Gladio had one hand on the headboard and the other braced against the mattress as he teased her with a fever. Fast, shallow thrusts rubbed the lip at the head of his cock against the rougher patch of her walls. Breaths came in desperate huffs against their necks. Each warm flood of air smoothed over fresh bruises like ice. Rena grabbed at anything, clawing at the sheets, pillows thrown across the room and barely intact in the midst of the chaos. Her loud keen was met by a groan that began gravelly but ended smooth and airy, as though to remind her whose turn it was.

Lost in the haze of rut, he had just enough sense to catch her in an already breathless kiss. Momentary suffocation was dizzying. Each squeeze of her only drove him on. They broke apart and gasped for air. The light scrape of nails over his arms, shoulders, back and finally neck, forced his mouth open and coaxed dark eyes to drift shut as he shuddered for more, and all over again.

They flew open when the legs wrapped around his back pulled him close, seating him deep inside her. Shaking as she satisfied her own demand, Gladio was blinded by the sudden tightness gripping him, slick and hot. Fever’s hold was strong enough to carry him moment to moment, but there was only one aim here.

Messy lips met in hums and craving pushes. Her teeth squeezed his bottom lip before cursing him in a whisper.

“You fuckin’ tease,” she shook her head, pulling him back for a kiss and whining into it when he pushed deep again.

“You started it,” growled Gladio. He tangled a hand in her hair and drew out again before sliding back in against the delicious resistance and slowly enough to make her head fall back. Throat exposed, he busied himself with nips at the already bruised flesh.

“Did- _nngh_ fucking not!” Rena hissed, breath hitching whenever he drove back in.

“Did too! Oh, gods _damn_ …”

Hips flush, they rocked on the bed, slowing down away from release, teasing themselves. Gladio rested a forearm on the mattress threw his head back at the slow drag of nails across his back.

“Yeah? What the fuck did I do?”

“You- _sweet Shiva-_ you wore the black ones!”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I always wear those ones! They’re the ones- _fucking hell_ \- I wear every day! Or they were! Until you fuckin’ wrecked them,” she laughed.

Gladio grinned in response, patting blindly across the sheets until he came across the ruined panties. High leg, black cotton, and ripped apart at the hips. Nothing special, by any standards except his own. He held them up.

“You mean these ones?”

Rena went for them, only for him to hold them out of her reach. He lay them on the bed and picked them up again to show her the patch she’d slicked through the enticements of want alone.

“You’d already wrecked ‘em.”

“Bullshit. I can wash that off.”

“Then you can sew ‘em up.”

“ _And_ I can blame that one on you,” she argued, a smile spread across flushed cheeks. A frown pulled at her features when he stopped moving.

“I’m flattered.”

“Fucking should be.”

Gladio cocked his head and surged down for a kiss. Lips met with enough force to bruise before easing off to more tender, careful presses. The swipe of her tongue on the underside of his lip was enough to throw him off, eyes falling shut while brows knitted high. A teasing bite to his jaw brought him back down to Eos. He shook his head from it and met the keen glint held in her eyes.

It stayed sharp ever as he picked up a rhythm again. Half-thrusts. Deep. Enough to bump against her limit and make her eyes drift shut. Not enough to throw her entirely. Gladio narrowed his eyes at the mischief written in green. Her hand smoothed over his back, down to his hip in a teasing touch that made his hips buck and her gasp, before finally resting between them.

Two fingers lingered at either side of his cock, gathering enough spilled slick to slide back up and begin rubbing at the sensitive bundle of nerves with the potential to drive her mad. Dual pleasure was a dangerous combination, especially when her other hand roamed down to his hip, nails digging into the muscles as they worked.

Curses left her in strings, mingled with his name and drawn out by every touch.

“You’re filthy, you know that?” he growled, curling his hips with a delicious grunt when she grabbed his ass.

“Mmhmm!” she nodded frantically, bottom lip trapped between her teeth.

She was so close. Rena could feel it; that beast she was coming to know well coiling around him and clawing at her in the process. Every push of him teased her closer, stretching her full around each thick inch. Panted breaths came through an open mouth. Lips twitched around half-curses, his name and any other sound that sang of euphoric incoherence.

His sounds were just as teasing. The voice scratched by an eternal roughness in his throat had growls, damnations, groans, grunts, huffs, moans and sighs. The best was when his voice cracked, so hoarse it was driven high at the edges of the sound.

His hair was thick in her fingers as the more skilled hand rubbed desperate circles at her clit.

“You gonna come for me?”

“Fuck! Don’t fucking- _ngh!”_

“Don’t what, huh?” he asked, teasing with his mouth under her ear, lips brushing against her neck. “You want me to be quiet? ‘Cause I don’t think you do, now say my name, make it nice’n’sweet for me...”

Gladio moved his own hand down and slipped it under hers, rubbing the pad of his thumb against her clit. The frown melting into a dizzy, open-mouthed smile of ecstasy drew a low rumble from his throat. She tightened around him, ankles hooked behind his back and hands clinging to him. Grinning, he trapped her in a kiss. He swallowed muffled moans, tongues playing as lungs burned. Gladio spoke again and used every ounce of gravel in his throat to roughen smooth words.

“I can feel you gettin’ close- _fuck._ Gods, you know how much I want you to come on me? Feel you shake? Huh?”

Her head threw back before fighting to give a cohesive response. “Just- fucking- shh!”

“Yeah?” he panted, grinding into her as his hips rolled for it. “ _Make me._ ”

The sharpness in her eyes made him rethink his dare. A choked whine left her before the hands threading through his hair tugged him down and bound him in a messy kiss. Always dizzied by that nowhere, Gladio’s rhythm slowed. He was throbbing, rocking as deep as he could while swiping her own slick across her clit in tantric strokes with his thumb. The fingers pressed against the base of her stomach could feel each full push as he eased in against soaked resistance.

Drunk on intimacy, his free hand roamed from her hip, up her side, squeezing at a breast before he curled it under her neck and buried his fingers in her hair while his other cupped the juncture between hip and thigh, feeling her curve to his touch. A craving moan shook through both of them. They broke for air, and a smoother voice than his own broke the silence.

“Are you gonna come for _me?_ ”

His cock twitched powerfully, only for her to squeeze back. The whiskey-cut edge to her voice rose like smoke, the angel’s share, and curled around him.

“Mmmh fuck… You feel that?” she asked, a keen smirk fixed on her as she watched his eyes drift shut. Thick brows knitted at the soft mewl she let out. Rena was playing his game and she played it well. “ _Fuck…_ Gladio please come, _please...”_

“Nhh fuck…”

“It always feels so fucking good, _please,”_ Rena purred.

His hips stuttered in their slow drive. The easy rocking against each other was edging them closer. Scents blended with sweat and sex. She cleared her mind again, just enough to let another satin slip of filth leave her.

“Mmnh fuck, come in me...”

His hips slammed, obedient and pressed flush as he tensed above her, enough to draw a craving keen. His cock swelled, white heat building in the pit of his stomach. She was grinding back underneath him. Hips rolled against each other. One more lacy pull and she’d have him, he knew it. He was halfway through warning her with her own name when he pushed the sound from her.

“Gladio…”

The sweet whisper of his name was the final straw. Huffed breaths were hot against her neck before a groan ripped through his gritted teeth, leaving him in the same instant he spilled inside her. The sticky heat of it was enough to throw her over the edge. Rena’s tensing and broken moans pulled the last of it from him as he fucked her with half-thrusts, balls pulsing against her.

The louder cries waned to whimpers and satisfied hums as lips met and danced, hips still working at each other though slower, no longer chasing the high; simply bathing in it. He pressed his forehead to hers.

“You…” Gladio croaked. “Are evil.”

“Thanks, I’ll put it on my CV.”

His snort of laughter was met by a few warm beats of her own. The flutter it gave her walls around him was enough to knit his brows together.

Not remembering when his arm hooked around her waist, he slipped it out from underneath her but stayed in for a moment longer. They were still twitching through aftershocks. A sensitive numbness coursed through them.

“CV, huh? You lookin’ for a job?”

“Why not? You’re always looking for a job. Handjob, blowjob-.”

Gladio grinned and chuckled. He ground his hips against her again, hissing as she squeezed around him.

“Yeah? Then what’s this?”

“This is the full fucking service,” she said simply. The pleased smile held well on flushed cheeks as he propped himself up above her. Gladio cocked his head.

“Happy to serve.”

The warmth in earthen eyes kept her smiling as she guided him down for a deep, humming kiss.

“Mmm… Same here,” she mumbled. “We can take turns.”

“Flip a coin?”

“I call tails.”

“Heads,” Gladio breathed.

His frown changed to blissful pinching when he left the numb phase and regained enough sensation to feel her walls soaked with his come. Her pleased hum was smoother than even that. With her fingers curled, tracing circles on the back of his neck, she watched him with the softness reserved for closer moments.

The soft light of the bedroom lamp deepened his colours. His tan was almost back at its summer hue. By far his most striking shade was the sun-kissed horizon in his eyes. She was sure one was dusk, and one was dawn. Which was which remained a question for another day. They softened when curious fingertips traced his lines. Rena smoothed his cheeks, along a stubbled jaw and drew around the reddened lips.

A careful touch along the length of his scar made his mouth fall open a little. He closed his eyes to let her pass. Gladio opened them to her sorry frown, and the bitten lip of sincere affection. She could’ve swiped tenderness from his skin, but it’d only blossom again. It fell from him like fallen leaves from an endless tree.

Gladio slipped his hand from her hair. He moved to rub his thumb along the scar in her cheek, only to notice something.

“Agh!” he feigned terror, admittedly badly. A quick frown pulled at her before he held his hand up. Dark curls were tangled and knotted around his fingers.

Rena snorted and fell into laughs as he whispered a scream. His own rich version came through a grin.

“Right, let me just- yeah,” she chuckled, working her hair’s grip from his hand with experienced fingers. “There. You’re free.”

“I don’t know about that,” he crooned, leaning down to nuzzle against her.

She nudged back, eyelashes tickled by his and mouths light against each other. Gladio gave a sweet kiss before he rested his forehead on her lips. A kiss was followed by her hands cradling his head. Rena moved him gently, lips dragged along the length of his scar.

She was sewing him up again. It may have made no difference to the harsh line cut into his face, or to the glass that still sliced him in more troubled sleep, but Gladio could feel it. Each moment of that touch was a blessing, whether she knew it or not.

Her lips followed down his cheek, pressed open against his mouth before falling shut together. That was what this was all about; shutting out the rest of the world. It was harmless, momentary, and blissfully ignorant.

The kiss parted in breathless, gentle sincerity. Eyes stayed closed. They knew each other blind by now.

Gladio found the scar on her cheek and nudged her to show it to him, even if only his lips were witness. She turned in acceptance. Chapped and warm, he followed the line given by as much by stubbornness as her own knife, first with his nose, then an open mouth with lips either side. Like her, he followed the angle across her cheek to kiss her.

“You’re something, you know that?”

Green eyes met his question with one of her own, one she wasn’t sure she wanted answered. Rena frowned gently at his rare vagueness. His explanation was held in an expression she didn’t understand yet. A smile pushed at his mouth as she chose an answer from the small infinity between them that defied their closeness.

“C’mere,” she mumbled, arms slinging around his neck.

Gladio hummed and settled down, safe in her skin, before turning onto his back and taking her with him. She forced tired legs to work and rose up enough for his half-hard cock to slip out. The shaken breaths were shared.

“Shower or towel?”

“Shower,” she nodded. “I’m all sweaty too.”

“Hey, it’s a good look,” Gladio said as he ran his hands over her sides. Rena deadpanned and raised an eyebrow at him.

“On you, maybe. I’m already messy enough.”

“Beautiful mess.”

“Handsome bastard.”

He grinned at the deep blush of her cheeks; blooming at the rough compliment just as the flush of sex left her.

“Mind if I join?”

“If I say yes…”

“I’ll stay right here and wait my turn,” he assured gently.

Rena tilted her head to the other side. “And if I say no?”

“I promise I won’t pick you up.”

“Chances of getting pounced?”

“I’d say… one in four?”

She narrowed her eyes, hands planted in the mattress either side of his shoulders. Gladio reached up lazily and played a curl between his hands, pulling it taut before letting it spring back. Amber eyes were soft with a calm tiredness; burning with the fatigue of a long day and spent satisfaction.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Rena concentrated on holding his release as she clambered off him and walked, somewhat cross-legged, to the door. Gladio followed close behind, hand on her hip. Wet noses were cold and unwelcome in certain places during brief interim between bedroom and bathroom.

Stone-cold water sputtered from the shower head as pipes creaked to pull it through. Bruised and blooming, Rena pulled her hair into a bun, biting her lip as tired thighs pressed together.

“How hot do you take showers again?”

“Right now, pretty hot.”

“Aww, gettin’ cold?” he raised his eyebrow. The flat, stern look had him holding back a laugh.

“Don’t.”

“Need a little-.”

“Gladio,” she warned through a smile.

He stepped closer, holding back the grin as it threatened to break his smoulder.

“Cosyin’ up?”

“Shove it, hot stuff,” Rena said, the nickname thick with sarcasm.

The warmth of him pressed against her. Strong arms wrapped around and pulled her flush to his front. Hands were already wandering.

“ _One in four_ my fuckin’ ass.”

“Can w-?”

_“Hell. Fucking. No.”_

She bounced up onto her tiptoes, shared a quick smooch and then braced herself. Rena stepped into the bath, water already beginning to steam the room. Release slipped from her with slick ease. The man himself stepped in and rattled the shower curtain shut.

Lips met her shoulder. Rena fixed on middle distance as warm water peppered her chest. Kisses landed like butterflies, pressed along the top of her shoulder and up to her ear, before continuing their path to the other shoulder. A kiss to her nape, right on the bone, made her lips part as she leant back.

“Get under there,” she said softly.

Gladio smirked and kissed her cheek. He stayed wrapped around her and turned. Water pelted the pair of them. Each hum he gave was returned by her own, her hands intertwining with his as he wrapped around her waist. Sleep made its threats in the bliss of touch and steam, warmth and intimacy.

“We’ve got ten minutes before the hot runs out.”

“Better get busy,” he grinned, lips pressed to her pulse.

“Couldn’t agree more,” purred Rena, swaying gently with him. His eyes opened when something light scratched against his chest. She was holding out a small black shower puff. “Got you a present.”

He snorted and held it under the shower. “Very practical. Appreciate it.”

“I know,” she cocked her head, picking up her own puff.

Loosened by use and a dove grey shade, she turned around and soaked it before ducking for the bottle of shower gel. Lathers were worked up. Scent was scrubbed into skin in place of sweat and sex. Hands wandered, but only in jest. Fresh skin was revealed in turns under the water. The shower was cut off and silence reigned through steam.

Until a loud growl echoed around the acoustics of the bathroom.

Both frowned. Eyes met.

“Was that me or…?”

Another twisted gurgled played.

“Me,” Gladio admitted. “Definitely me.”

“Trust you,” she shook her head, smiling through it. He passed behind her, one hand on her waist as he leant down to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Can’t help it. You always make me hungry,” he joked, towel wrapped around his waist as he left the bathroom in search of fresh boxers.

“Very funny.”

Dried and dressed in clean underwear and a ruined training tank, a huge yawn drew her taut as she loosened her hair. Gladio returned with his towel folded and left it on the rack.

“Right, what am I feeding you?” she asked, stroking the dogs as she made her way to the kitchen. “All jokes aside.”

“Toast and-.”

_“Gladio.”_

A deep chuckle threw a smile onto her face.

“Hold on a sec, I brought stuff,” Gladio said.

Rena searched half-full cupboards for something quick. Easy. Preferably sugary. She was met by scratch ingredients; flours, spices, dried pasta and rice. Cheeks puffed. In the corner of her eye, the fridge offered its own temptations. Leftovers, vegetables, eggs, milk. Rena shook her head and closed it. The sound of it shutting wasn’t the same. She glanced towards a sharper, higher sound.

Gladio had returned and placed a jar on the counter, alongside a few other things.

“What the fuck are those?”

He looked up, eyebrows raised in curiosity. Gladio followed her sharp stare to the jar.

“Pickles.”

“What the fuck are they doing in my kitchen?”

Mischief led him, a dancing and transient temptation. “…Pickling.”

Rena spoke slowly, never moving her eyes from the jar. They loomed in the brine, shaking pale and translucent when he turned it to show her the label.

“And who are they for?”

“Us.”

“You.”

“What?”

“They’re yours,” she decided. Dark eyes flicked up to him as he failed to hide the smirk. His new discovery required investigation.

“You… don’t like pickles?”

“Fuck no. Get them out of my kitchen,” she laughed, almost nervous.

“Now I’m not allowed to eat them?”

“Not inside.”

Gladio stuck his tongue into his cheek before pouting innocently and shaking his head, as if to dismiss the thought entirely. Rena ducked into the freezer, rifling through drawers to no avail. Milk it was. A mug and saucepan were gathered, milk poured, and spices added. The tick of the gas hob came with an accent. It was barely hidden and recognisable. The pop and hiss of a fresh jar being opened. Her eyes fixed on the tiled splashback.

The next sound was worse.

Crunching. Squeaking. Squelching. Undeniable munching that made it feel like her ears had sand poured into them. The sound itself was a dark chartreuse. Muddy but sharp. She could already smell it. It got stronger.

Gladio hummed and wrapped his arms around her, mouth level with her cheek. In a brief moment that crossed the line between brave and stupid, he did something he’d never normally do. He chewed with his mouth open. His eyes were sharp enough to notice the small drop of pickle juice that landed on her cheek.

Sense hit him like a freight train.

_Run._

Gladio pushed himself against walls as she chased him. The sudden movement excited the dogs enough for their nails to skitter against the floorboards as they joined the game. Gladio and Rena stood on opposite sides of the coffee table. They dodged left and right; a game of evasion and misleading, weighed on the odds of reaction time and agility.

He sprinted. She tackled but missed. His hearty laugh followed him down the hallway until it stopped with a thud. He’d slipped. Rena landed on top of him, quickly straddled him and pinned his wrists down. Green eyes did a quick scan for pain, but only found a grin as he belly laughed.

“Got you,” she smirked.

“Yeah, you did,” he sighed, eyebrows raised. They fell back down as an idea tapped at him. “Gimme a kiss.”

Her eyes widened as he surged up. The scent of it made her stomach turn.

“No! Nope!”

“C’mon! You know you want to!”

“Get fucking lost!” she half-shrieked, racing away through the tiny apartment.

Shaking with laughter, Gladio jogged back to the living room. It was quiet. Too quiet.

“Rena,” he sang. “C’mon, I need a little sugar to go with that pickle! Sweet and sour. Classic combo.”

Silence.

Gladio prowled into the kitchen, searching for any movement at all, or any sound that would give her away. Seyna panted and stood at his side. He crouched momentarily and scratched the back of the dog’s head.

“Where’d she go, huh? Go find her,” he coaxed. Down on a new level, he swept his eyes across the room.

The quiet creak of a door threw a grin onto his face. Gladio stood and followed the familiar sound. He crept down the hallway, closing his mouth to hold onto the sharp, sour scent currently numbing his tongue. The bedroom door was shut. She rarely closed it. He turned the handle, expecting her to be on the other side, pressed flat against it to keep him out.

Before he could even touch it, a hand grabbed his wrist and hauled him sideways into the bathroom. Gladio kept his footing; just. She slipped out past him and slammed the door behind her, holding it closed as he turned the handle. He knocked softly, letting his forehead thump on the door.

“Okay, you got me,” he admitted as a deep chuckle bubbled through him. He sighed audibly against the wood. “What do I have to do to get outta here?”

“Brush your damn teeth!” she laughed.

A quick glance to the sink put an idea in his head. “My brush isn’t in here. Just have to use yours…”

“No! Don’t even think about it!”

“Thinking about it!”

“Fuck’s sake,” Rena cursed under her breath and through a smile. Her eyes locked on his holdall as it sat by the end of the bed. She glanced at the door in nervous play, adrenaline taking the edge from the nauseating memory of the pickles.

She moved, quick and quiet, darting to the bedroom and picking up the holdall. Rena brought it back to her post at the bathroom door and pulled out his toiletry bag. Amongst the shaving kit and allergy pills, was his toothbrush and a tiny bottle of mouthwash. She plucked them out, zipped up the bags and pushed them across the floor with her foot.

“Got it.”

“Yeah? You gonna open the door? Hand it over?”

“If you’re on the opposite side of the room, yeah, I’ll put it on the floor for you” she laid out her terms. The quieter sounds of his movements were muffled by the fan in the bathroom.

“Okay, I’m at the window.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Rena took a deep lungful of clean air and opened the door.

“Hhhhey there,” he breathed, just beyond the door and deliberately throwing as much of the scent of it her way as he could.

“No gods! You- _eugh!_ ”

His victorious laugh continued as he caught the toothbrush and mouthwash thrown his direction in defence. The door slammed again as he clutched his sides. An experimental turn of the handle confirmed she was still holding it.

“Nice try,” she announced before continuing under her breath. “Pickle-breathed bastard.”

“Heard that,” Gladio called, squeezing toothpaste onto his brush.

She guarded the door and refused to move. After a few tries of the handle, Gladio stopped testing it. Rena snuck away and busied herself with the tasks of the evening; throwing out the now burnt milk, scrubbing the pan, and taking the dogs out. Luck had it that she’d left her own toothbrush to charge in the kitchen. She brushed her teeth there and dealt with the jar of offending monstrosities.

The bedroom light was soft as the glow of an unsleeping city glittered outside the window. Hazy, tired and calmed after the pickle escapade, Rena was cross-legged on the bed and sifting through her emails. The blue glow, even at its dimmest, only made winter-paled skin seem starker. She glanced up when a deep sigh came from the door.

“Password.”

Gladio knelt on the bed and spoke close.

“I don’t have pickle breath, sixty-nine.”

She narrowed her eyes and sniffed once.

“Get in.”

“That was the password and a question. I don’t have pickle breath.” He held up one hand, before holding up the other with the second part of his statement, alongside a quirked brow. “Sixty-nine?”

The deadpan stare made him suppress a smile.

“Do us both a favour and give it a fuckin’ rest.”

Gladio snorted.  “I will when you do.”

The raised eyebrow and prompt click of her lamp being switched off was enough to make her point clear.

“I can’t feel my mouth,” he said, casting the sheets aside to sit in the bed. “Don’t think I have any teeth left either.”

The pitiful look on his face was met by her deadpan. Both held their respective expressions for a moment before breaking into a snort and quiet laughs.

“Can you check for me?” he asked, tilting his head.

Rena sighed and leant forwards from her spot. The only part of them that touched was their lips. At first. His cheeks were warm in her hands, stubble scratching at palms and mouth in soft craving with hers. The quiet sound of parting was a call for eyes to open again. They ignored it, noses brushing each other.

“What’s the verdict?” Gladio croaked.

“Minty fresh,” she whispered. Rena nudged against him as she stroked the back of his neck. “You can stay.”

She slipped under the sheets and pulled them to her hips, still not used to the Insomnian climate. Their ‘cold’ was her ‘comfortable’. It manifested itself in simple ways; her refusal to wear a jacket, the presence of a scarf only to hide hickeys, though her hair did most of the work, still running the dogs come hail, rain or shine. Cleigne winters were idyllic - on postcards; reality was always harsher. Old Lestallum had already seen its first snow of the season, and it wouldn’t be long until the only patch of the region free of a thick blanket, frozen solid by cold nights, would be Ravatogh.

Phone abandoned on her bedside, Rena pushed the pillows away and settled down.

“Feel like pickles for breakfast?”

_“Gladio.”_

“Aw, c’mon,” he coaxed, sweeping the curls away from her face as she rested her chin on her forearms. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“No,” Rena shook her head, frowning in sincerity. His raised eyebrow asked the same question again. “I’m pissed you breathed on my face when I opened the door. You promised.” A more puzzled frown came over her. “Fucking hell, that sounds childish.”

Gladio stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Nah, I promised… I promise it’s the only promise I’ll break, okay?”

“If you can help it,” she said, giving him leeway with his own tight fastenings of self and word.

“If I can help it,” agreed Gladio. He shuffled down into the sheets and lay on his side, head propped up on his elbow. “What about you?”

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Close in the quiet, sleepy intimacy of the end of a good day, hands played with each other. Gladio took the time to turn hers over and check them in the dim bedroom light. The cold had brought some redness back into her knuckles, but not enough for them to split open and bleed again. Rena traced the lines in his palm with tickling fingertips, enough for a huffed smile to push at his lips.

Amber had softened to a campfire, warm and gentle in his eyes. He was beginning to make sense of the words written in dappled light and whispered by rustling leaves in hers. They’d started to be understood and listened to.

Both of them.

* * *

The trees were on fire. It glowed at their edges, silhouetted them as dark soldiers in attention to a dying sun. The twenty-one-gun salute was sounded by snapping icicles as they smashed on frozen ground. Further trees, still feathered in foliage, loomed like hanged men in their rags. Breath plumed and burned in the coldest sunset he’d ever known.

And yet it was a marvel. It was no surprise when muted colours were set bloody by the infernal horizon.

He was fire, and fire was he.

_Think and feel._

The low call came from ahead; a grunt and a wail twisted by a voice as rough as its nature. They’d been set the task. One of the hanged men moved. Their quarry was aflame in the light. Temporarily blinded as he adjusted his glasses, Ignis focused on the plodding mountain as it walked past with a heaviness that kept it alive. The trees on its back were rarer, more rigid, stripped back to a bare trunk as they tapered towards the sky and threatened to tear it. Its breath poured against the sunset. Each plume darkened the world a little more as a snarl revealed glistening teeth from a wrinkled muzzle.

They all held firm. Frozen pine needles refused to betray their location, but a carelessly placed foot could easily do it in their stead. Twigs and branches, all the way up to the thickness of his arm, were cold enough that they’d snap under pressure. The sap had frozen, turned hard and brittle.

It was lone. Vulnerable. Solitary by nature, bulettes rarely ventured above ground after the first frosts. This one had missed its chance. A cold snap had brought an early winter, sweeping through Cleigne to choke southern Duscae with its taloned grip. In the Kettier Highlands, water had been frozen from the air and the ground was impenetrable.

It turned to face the sinking sun, weakened by weeks in bitter conditions, it had taken to raiding outposts. With the region already throttled by the deprivations of the season, the bounty offered was small; too small to be worth the risk for hunters who could eek out until spring came. However, it offered experience.

They had much to prove.

They closed in. It was facing away, blinded by light that would only give them so much time. Timing was everything. Ignis couldn’t help but think. _Find the weaknesses_ was his own guidance. _Use them_ was hers _._ Rena’s guidance had been hard for a theoretical mind to commit to. Pragmatism was not his style.

_Don’t plan anything. Don’t count on anything unless it’s just about to happen._

Quiet fizzes came as weapons were summoned. He glanced to his left. Gladio’s breath came in steady plumes, one flooding out just as the other dissipated at its end. His eyes were almost black in the shadow of a tree. The sun caught them when he locked with Ignis. He was fire incarnate; Ignis was the embodiment of the Infernian’s gift.

They turned back to the bulette. Each time they watched it move, it felt as though earth rendered cold and dead beneath their feet would shift with another of its kind. It would be quick. The falling away of the ground, a rise of thick claws and vicious teeth.

Ignis looked to his right. Noctis was alien in as fiery a light as this. Inky blue and fair skin refused to blend with the bloody winter sun. Oceanic eyes had broken from their usual haze and become focused; sharp. He was the cutting ice of a dark sea and beyond him, Prompto lined up his first shot.

Desperate animals fought harder. It was a fact. They were already fighting and so rarely drew the line between the start of combat, and the end. Life was a struggle.

A dog sprinted past the bulette. It growled and backed up, stopped in its slow march between nowhere and nowhere else. Another sprinting tease, past the left flank, earned a snap from the beast. One more. A swipe of a massive paw. Again. An already infuriated roar.

Stillness came with its own suspicion. The beast planted its feet in the ground. A thunderous growl filtered through dripping teeth in a cloud of plumed breath.

Then it all began.

Ignis was half-sure he’d be impaled when a deafening crack sounded through the trees, as though on had fallen or an icicle was bound for his shoulder. Prompto’s first shot hit its mark and painted red over the bulette’s hind leg. Ignis took the crimson as his aim and sprinted, daggers bound for it’s hock.

Thick skin, as rough as stone, was little challenge for momentum and the razor edge of his weapons. Blood sprayed warm against his side. One leg down; three to go. Two and they could get it on its side and finish the job cleanly.

The snapped jaws of the bulette by his elbow, close enough for the heat of its breath to seep through his clothes, threw Ignis from the corners of his mind and back into a frozen battlefield.

The light was leaving them. Even with torches, they were at a disadvantage in the dark. Fear may only be in the mind, but it has hooks in the chest. Adrenaline was no advantage. It did little but heavy the limbs and dizzy the mind in a situation demanding focus, or death.

The loud swoop of Gladio’s broadsword as he cut through air so thin it was barely breathable came with a crunching accent. Metal, both sight and scent, was filling their small arena in the heavy velvet of blood. The bulette curled into a ball and readied to charge. Cut tendons in its back legs rendered them useless.

It still charged.

Shield in hand, she met the blow at a glanced angle; enough to allow her escape from the majority of the force. The fall of blue ashes as they burned came like snow from above. Noctis warped between trees and tried to find a vantage point. Ignis checked on him before another shot cracked like lightning. It was chased from them by an enraged roar and threatened to cut the trees in a wide ripple leading from their location.

The bulette spun. It relied on muscular forelegs to keep itself upright. All of its normal fighting techniques and prestige had been stolen by the ruining of its hindquarters. No rearing. Charges were weak and squint. They surrounded it. They had the upper hand.

Then a thundering came back through the trees; a threatening response to their disturbance of a quiet night as it had just begun. Ground so solid and yet shaken. Even the bulette silenced itself.

The first of them charged through, head bowed and swayed heavy arching horns in one fell swoop. Thrown against a nearby tree hard enough to fell it, the burst of ashes from above came as Noctis left the tree to fall.

Dread settled heavy in Ignis. _Expect the unexpected_ was his way. _Never expect anything_ was hers. He tried to cling to the mindset that would get them out of this alive, and preferably uninjured. Fear was filling his gut and legs with lead.

They were in the apocalyptic twilight as the sky remained bloodied at one side and the other darkened with the coming night. Oil was fighting blood for possession of what used to be blue. Already dark grey, the lone arba had passed through, continued running through trees only fractionally outgrowing it. The strong, striped legs were easily a head taller than Gladio and they wielded curved horns readily enough to put a chill in his blood.

Knocked on its side, the bulette scrabbled to get up. Noctis threw his sword and warped to it. The final crack of thick bone under steel announced the end.

There was still something in the air. The scent of blood burned against a cold night. It was freezing to the ground as much as it steamed from it. The mist was stained red by the last of the sun and carried the iron scythe of death in its aroma.

The ground moved again.

Arba are herd animals.

A stampede of legs and hellish brays came from them. The cavalry made for them, driven by the scent of blood and the call of the others. Heads lowered with angry snorts. Ignis could make out half a dozen heads, maybe more, but the light was failing him.

They stormed the clearing.

With his back pressed to a tree, he couldn’t do much but pray they fell for his concealment. Ignis stayed perfectly still, chest heaving with the scent of blood. He flicked to his right. Twenty feet away, Gladio hid by his own tree, turned from looking over his shoulder and nodded.

The others were safe, or at least doing the same.

He’d never held the daggers so tightly. Ignis crushed them in his hands; the ornate handles threatening to burst like glass in the cold, to leave him with nothing more than blades and no means of wielding them. He didn’t dare turn his flashlight on, lest it gave him away. They remained plunged in the pitch of darkness and what little light they could gather from it.

The first of the arba passed through without problem. Small and fast, it was one of this year’s calves. The second never ran past.

The ground quaked, bones cracked, and horns clashed as a misplaced hoof brought one, then another and a third to the ground slick with half-frozen blood. Another of the herd sprinted past his left and into the darkness until all Ignis could see was the pale flash of its legs. Panted breaths came so quickly they barely fogged the air. Ignis took a draw of clear encouragement and peered over his shoulder.

An arba charged him, bellowing gutturally as it swung its head. The horns missed him and his hiding spot by feet, and crashed down in front of him instead, uprooting a boulder from its frozen winter nest. The beast followed the other into the darkness.

Gritting his teeth, Ignis glanced quickly at the mess behind his right-hand side. They untangled themselves, kicked and bucked at each other in the process before sprinting away. The last of the herd followed behind; mothers with calves or heavy as they carried the unborn, and the elder bulls, withered and leathery with age.

As the final few of them thundered away, Ignis pinched his brows together and readjusted his glasses. The tree, rough and cold at his shoulders, grounded him in reality. The dogs were barking. Incessant strings of distress and alarm at some threat hidden in the sudden, cold night. They fell silent. He allowed himself the sudden reassurance in the illumination of his flashlight.

Ignis let out a short, slightly shaken whistle. One came from behind him. Another above. A sharper note came from his right.

No fifth note.

Footsteps raced behind him as a sword fixed in the ground to his right. Noctis warped down and cast it back into the armiger. Prompto, cheeks slapped by the cold, squinted in Ignis’ light as he turned on his own and covered it with his hand. Panted breaths and incredulous puffs clouded between them. Ignis ran his eyes over Noct and felt some of the weight lift from his shoulders. He was fine. They all were.

“Are you alright?” he asked anyway, just to check.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m good,” Noctis panted, hands on his thighs as he caught his breath. Prompto grinned, almost deliriously.

“Hoooo… Can we _not_ do that again?” he asked. The outstretched freckled hand shook as he held it level.

A stumble came from their right. The faster footfalls of the dogs circled as they sniffed the ground, the air, them, everything. Usually they’d let their tails wag by now. Tongues would loll, and affectionate reward would be sought.

Out of the darkness and held up by a body that wasn’t her own, Rena was half-falling to the ground, shaking her head only to wince and blanche again as she tried to walk. Gladio held her to his side. It was a sight that unnerved Ignis. Always strong, always capable, and suddenly unable to stand, let alone move.

She drooped again. Violently. Halfway through her crash towards the ground, Gladio gathered her up and walked towards the rest of them, his mutters hidden behind her head as she frowned deeply, teeth gritted.

Both pairs of blue eyes widened from the creases of relieved smiles. Ignis stepped towards them and met them halfway.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Gladio said breathlessly as he shook his head. “I heard the dogs and-.”

Interrupted by a close, whooping howl, Gladio’s head whipped towards the sound. The dogs already had their hackles up and fell into low growls, standing their ground as they showed sharp teeth and tucked their tails.

Ignis moved quickly. He detached his flashlight from his jacket and held it up, pulling her glassy eyes open with a gloved finger and thumb he forced not to shake. One pupil pinned, as expected. The other remained wide and dilated, vast inky pool. Unable to react. Scarlet was trickling from her nose. The weight that had only just lifted dropped in his gut. Another howl drove it further.

“We need to go.”

Ignis turned on his heels and marched, the pool his flashlight allowed momentarily bursting with the brighter flash of a summoned lance. Prompto still had a grip of his guns. He moved too quickly towards Gladio and incited threats from the dogs. Approach slowed, he reached to switch on Gladio’s flashlight before keeping himself at the edge of the group. The sharpest eyes and quickest draw could give them an advantage, or simply keep them alive. He kept his pistol in his hands, braced and ready to shoot.

Every sound in that darkness seemed closer. The scent of blood followed them. Each doubted their own memory and feared they’d lose the way back. She always navigated. An innate sense for knowing where she was going and, crucially, where she’d been. In turn, they damned themselves for doubting. Doubt was the first mistake. _Be sure._ She’d always said it.

_Be sure before you do anything, and while you’re doing it, or don’t do it at all. You don’t have to be completely sure; just a shred’ll be enough._

Ignis cursed himself for considering her words as if she were already…

Unnamed threats and night curled around them in long skeletal fingers, smoky in their softness with cold, hard bones. Each feared his own breath would obscure some tiny detail that would spell between life and death, for at least one of them. She was one of them.

They left the trees behind and lost their perspective. Depth was too much for their flashlights as they flooded out into the dark like ghosts. The light was white smoke thrown so far it was thin and barely any help. The blue spire on the horizon made breathing a little easier.

Prompto and Noctis gathered at the flap of the tent after Ignis dove in to clear space and set up his makeshift clinic. The dogs kept steady at Gladio’s heels, heads down and hackles up. The whites of their eyes showed red in the dying firelight, slivers of blood moons as the wolves in them came out. Jaw clenched, and Rena in his arms, he ducked into the tent with a militant focus.

“Set her down- _carefully_ ,” Ignis instructed, pulling yet more supplies from the med kit. He stripped off his leather gloves and replaced them with clean latex versions. “Now, what happened?”

Gladio placed her on the floor of the tent, internally cursing the mat for being so thin. His chest caved when she frowned and tried to roll onto her side. Being on her back was vulnerable. Vital organs were exposed and getting up was slower. She knew that, even in… whatever state she was in now. Kneeling behind her head, he put a hand under her neck and another on her shoulder to tilt her back.

“I don’t know,” he said thickly. “I heard the dogs, went running and she was on the ground.”

“Alright, so…” Ignis trailed, welcoming himself into his thoughts as he pulled on a more analytical mindset to override the panic clutching at his gut.

The blood on her top lip was drying. Flow had stopped. Good.

Her left pupil was still unreactive. Bad.

Pulse was strong. Good. Slow. Bad.

“Concussion,” he concluded. Ignis glanced up at Gladio.

He was still. Too still. Completely focused on her as he watched for the slightest movements. Ignis returned his attention to the patient he never thought he’d have, tables turned from their first meeting, and the sense of owing something weighing heavy in his gut. Debt was not what drove him on. It was care. Familiarity. She’d become a friend, and he’d be damned if he…

He wouldn’t.

Ignis pressed lightly across her brows, fingertips pushing gently in the hopes of finding strong bone and no shifts. He pleaded with the Astrals that there’d be no fracture, no sickening crunch of broken skull cracking against each other, no soft patches of structure blown to oblivion by an impact enough to render her useless.

“Iggy.”

Gladio had moved, eyes focused sharply as a dark pair opened. There was an absence. Glassiness. Ignis took his opportunity and followed protocol.

“Rena, can you hear us?”

She tried to nod, only to frown. There were too many hands on her head. Too many people. She felt trapped. Panic began to show through the thick layer of confusion.

“Don’t move. You’ll be alright, you’ve had a bit of a knock to the head, but you’ll be fine, just speak to us- no, no! Stay awake,” he said as he clicked his fingers in front of her face.

Bleary eyes forced themselves open again and tried to focus. They kept sliding to the side and darting back, as if she’d spun around only to stop. Everything said sleep. She was tired. Cold.

“I need you to answer some questions for me, Rena, can you do that?” he asked, locking eyes with her as she half-focused on him. Her mouth formed around a silent affirmation.

“Alright,” he began. Ignis asked his questions in a clear, slow tone, even more precise than his usual pronunciation. “Who am I?”

“I- Iggy,” she breathed. Her struggling focus found the darker shape curled over her. “and… and Gladio.”

He forced a smile as his thumb stroked against the side of her neck. He could feel her pulse racing.

“Hi,” he nodded. Rena responded with her own weakly breathed version.

His hand was wet. Warm. Gladio tore his eyes from hers and held his thumb clear of her. The sweat dampened neck was slick with a darker stain. Her ear had bled. Scarlet was seeping into the lines of his skin. Ignis caught sight of the blood and began to dab it away with a small ball of cotton wool.

“Good, very good. Now can you tell me where we are?” Ignis asked, brows raised. His stare sharpened, trying to hook her conscious state and hold it, as her eyes grew heavy again. Gladio’s hand was the only thing that stopped her weak attempt to shake her head.

“N-no.”

“Do you know where you are?” Ignis tried again.

“Yeah…”

“Knows where she is but can’t tell is where it is, of course,” Ignis ranted to himself. His nerves were beginning to fray as he tried to question her during a messy consciousness. He spoke again, clearer and tried a different approach. “Tell us about it. What does it look like?”

“Stone.”

Both frowned at her.

“Stone and… straw? I can smell… straw,” she said weakly, barely above a croaked whisper. Her realities were blending as memory muddied with present. Rena’s eyes widened as a more pressing thought came over her. “Ochre and- and Seyna… They’re…”

“They’re okay. They’re outside, okay?” Gladio knitted his brows, damning himself for weak assurances. His hands were beginning to shake. Her own frown was worried, more so than she ever showed.

“It’s cold, though… It’s not fair.”

“Rena, do you know where you are?” Ignis gave it one last try.

“H-home. I’m at home, I think… Wait, why… are you guys here?”

“What’s it like?”

“Stone. There’s trees… and the river… and- and a table… Straw, too. There’s… straw...”

Analytics be damned, she wasn’t making any sense. Bricks had been expected. Streetlamps. Leather, for her sofa. Ignis glanced at Gladio. His jaw was clenched.

“What’s she talking about? Where-?”

“Cleigne. She’s in Cleigne. The shed.”

_Home._

Realisation washed through Ignis, as it had once come through Gladio. He’d gone in there to torment her on a whim, out of boredom. He’d forced himself into the only space she’d called her own and she’d let him. It bled, seeping and fizzing in a wave like adrenaline. Except this settled lighter on the gut and heavier on the heart. She never talked about it. Answered when asked and never, ever said too much.

Ignis sat back on his heels and gave her a visual sweep. Other injuries could wait; the head was a different matter altogether.

“Turn her head for me, please,” he told Gladio. “Slowly. I’ll guide her, you support the neck.”

“Got it,” came thick and too fast to be entirely calm.

Ignis fixed his fingertips at her jaw and tilted her head as her eyes drifted shut. All the way to the right, no winces, no sounds, either intended or not, no twitches anywhere else on the body. They tilted left. Same again, all fine. Back and forward, nothing more than the shifting of her hair and the silence that emanated from clammy skin. Exhaustion was already darkening around her eyes.

In the dim light of the tent, supplied by little more than the pale glow of a small solar-charged lamp, Ignis could see his breath plume. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. It was too cold. She’d freeze before she’d have the chance to wake properly. Gladio looked up, a lost frown on his face, as Ignis rocked back onto his feet and took the two rushed steps to the flap of the tent.

The warm glow of the fire met him, but none of its heat. Prompto and Noctis both looked up from the blaze with pinched brows as the dogs paced around the camp, dark shapes only cast into light when shadows didn’t make them more menacing creatures.

“Is she-?” Left Prompto weakly.

“Concussion. Hot water bottles, they’re in _that_ box,” he pointed to the small black container on the undershelf of his kitchen table. “Get that fire and the kettle going, we-.”

“Iggy, something’s happening.”

He whipped back into the tent and landed on his knees with a sharp thud. Her hands were clawed and held close under her chin. She’d tensed completely, so hard it was as if touching her would cause her to shatter, like glass at a brittle point.

“She’s seizing,” Ignis said, confirming it as much for himself as Gladio. “Cushion her head but _do not hold her still_ , she’ll break her own neck.”

His last words were muttered, and yet still enough for Gladio to grit his teeth. He snatched a sleeping bag from his side and stuffed it under and around her head, just as the convulsions began. She was wracked, thrown about by some greater force and yet completely at the mercy of her own biology. Flaring panic burned in both as Ignis only just remembered to time on his watch.

It was terrifying. A human body, or any for that matter, completely out of control and jerking around as though muscles were trying to wrench themselves from bone, gave an innate sense of wrongness to the onlooker. Nothing could be done, except wait, and waiting was always the worst part. It made their stomachs turn in on themselves, trying to hide from what they needed to witness.

Every fibre of her was trying to tear apart from the rest. Every violent clack of her teeth as they crashed into each other again and again threatened to break them. The force of it was enough to put her on her side, still twitching as though she were ticking down to explode.

Rena lost her grip on it all. Clawed hands fell loose. Ignis glanced at his watch again and could’ve sworn on his life that had been longer than four minutes. She was completely still. Limp. The sense of upset and that something was undeniably wrong turned sour in their guts before it became smoke and left on acrid breaths that darkened their thoughts, even as they tried to swipe it away into clarity. Panic was no stranger, but it was an unwelcome guest. In combination, panic and upset led them to a conclusion neither wanted to accept.

Gladio shook her shoulder gently as he leant down to see her face. Blood formed a quiet puddle beside her mouth. There was no breath to throw ripples into it. He shook her again.

“Rena.”

Nothing.

“Come on, baby. Come back,” he begged, voice roughened by a desperation he was trained to hold down and minimise.

This wasn’t Noct, though. He could lose it if he had to, but he wasn’t sure he could lose her. The silence filled his stomach with razor wire. It unbound with every second and twisted through him, following the softer path of roots she’d taken in him. He brushed the hair from her face and checked her pulse before his thumb stroked across her cheek in tender care. His other hand found hers limp and unresponsive. Even when he twined their fingers and squeezed, likely too hard, there was no squeeze back.

“Rena, c’mon, please,” Gladio shook his head, words falling onto her cheek like raindrops, like tears. “Breathe.”

Silence. Stillness. Almost serenity.

She ripped air into her lungs, gasping for it as though she’d been drowned. The sharpness of the sound threw their eyes wide open. Rena didn’t move, other than the hauling of her diaphragm as it fought to pull life back into her, one breath at a time. Her grip on his hand became crushing. She used it to drag herself out of a new abyss, one she didn’t intend to return to. Gladio’s forehead fell against her temple with a whispered relief.

“You scared the shit outta me.”

Ignis took his own deeper breath. He remained troubled, though now more curious than dreading. He’d watched it play out. The horror, rare but, written on Gladio’s face in loose brows, wide eyes and a mouth twitching around something, some words he was sure of but couldn’t articulate yet. He’d forced himself not to shake. Voice. Hands. Self. Close and curled over her as she quietened to muted pants, Gladio was beginning to breathe again. This was a different kind of panic. Ignis had seen him when attempts had been made on Noctis; the guard dog, the calm, clean acceptance and protection, as sharp and sure as his sword, was all that made it out of him. This had been messier. Different, but just as intense. Desperate.

“Excuse me,” Ignis said quietly.

Gladio glanced up at him, then the glowing vial in his hand. He rocked back on his knees. In the newfound brightness, she tried to roll and hide on her front, to regain some of that protection by shielding herself. Ignis burst the potion over her head. Bright, fine blue ashes fell onto her hair and skin like snowflakes and disappeared as they melted to give their effect. Ignis took another deep, composing breath of air sweetened by the potion. It had a clean scent, like mint but less defined. Cool and sweet without being sharp. If sugar had a scent, that would’ve been it.

“Iggy,” Gladio began his explanation. “We-.”

“It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me, if that’s not what you wish. You’ve every right to privacy,” he reassured. Jade eyes met an amber hue trying to say so many things at once. To explain, to reveal, to thank, again and again.

“Kinda already did tell ya,” he cocked his head. Ignis began to pack away the supplies and raised his eyebrows.

“Well, it was only a matter of time. You could only hate each other for so long. It’s not in either of your natures to _hate_ anything,” he reasoned.

Gladio looked as though a weight had dropped from him as time drew on and steadier breaths gave him something to cling to. Panic was settling in him. It had gone from beating its wings and clawing to escape his chest until it roosted and smoothed its feathers. He grounded himself in his senses, returned from the flare of it all.

Ignis closed the med kit and sat back on his heels. Debt repaid. She’d given him a hand. He’d given her a head. Rena was still breathing. The motion of each draw and push of her lungs took effort, but she did it anyway. Other than that, the only movement on her was Gladio’s fingers tangled in her hair, his thumb gently stroking behind her ear.

“I’m going to make supper. They’ll sleep better on full stomachs. We all will,” he said, as he caught Gladio’s tired gaze again. “Stay with her. If she comes to, keep an eye on her but don’t let her move.”

It took Gladio a moment to answer. “Yeah. Yeah, course.”

“Alright,” Ignis nodded. He turned and made for the flap of the tent. Before he whirred the zip open, he turned over his shoulder and looked at the two of them again. “And Gladio?”

“Yeah?” he asked, bringing his focus up to Ignis. A small, fond smile played on thin lips.

“I’m happy for you.”

Gladio smiled before he bit the inside of his lip and nodded. “Thanks, man. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“No, it’s alright. Now, I’m going to feed those two before they start whining. If she fits again, time the convulsions.”

Gladio’s stomach dropped at the prospect. He gave Ignis a single nod as his hands sought the warmth of her hidden under her hair.

“You got it.”

“Good.”

With that, Ignis left the tent and Gladio sat back on his heels. She was still breathing. Quieter and lazy in the rhythms of sleep. He kept one hand under her head and shifted onto his hip before he unfolded his legs and fought back the fizzing start of pins and needles. She was still warm. Gladio leant back, plucked a few cotton balls and a bottle of water from the med kit and sat back up. He pinned the bottle between his legs and opened it, plugged the top with cotton and briefly upended it to dampen the ball. A few swipes bloodied it as he washed the scarlet stain from her top lip.

Gladio settled himself and followed standard procedure; review, reconsider, move on. First, he had to relive it. He’d been standing in the dark. The cluster of the herd were passing. Somewhere amongst the thunderous footfalls and low bellows of the arba, their horns had clattered against trees, each other and finally a hollow wooden thud. He could pick it out in hindsight.

He’d leant over his left; Noct was fine, clinging to the branches of a tree but alert enough to warp down. Ignis; also fine, standing and checking, the same as him. Prompto; shaken but fine. He’d turned right.

Then his ears finally lowered their shroud and he heard barking. The incessant panic and alarm of the dogs. He’d followed the sound. They’d stood over her. When he’d approached, they stopped barking and fell into whines and whimpers as they nudged her. The weight dropped in his gut all over again. Something squeezed his chest. It wasn’t the chains; it was ropes. Roots.

Something else squeezed his hand.

Gladio shook the darkness from his head and blinked back to the dim blue of the lantern’s light bouncing off the tent walls.

“Hey.”

The weak croak, no more than a breath given definition, made his chest cave. He leant forwards to be in her line of sight, thumb continually stroking over her cheek.

“Hey,” he returned, a relieved smile pushing at his lips. She pushed with the arm underneath her. “Hey, no. Stay down.”

She frowned before doing as she was told. The slight but sudden drop back to the ground was fast enough to draw a dizzied wince.

“Ahh fuck… Bulette?”

“Arba.”

“Ah. Either way… it was _pissed_.”

“Yeah, they weren’t too happy,” he breathed a laugh. “How d’you feel?”

“Fuckin’… I don’t know. Tired,” Rena tried to shake her head, only to hold her breath at the sting that lined her skull. A slow inhale brought blood, but the sweet scent of the potion made her stomach turn. There was a stiffness in her neck. One that wasn’t bettered by the warmth of his hand. Rena reached up and slipped her hand to her nape as Gladio supported closer to the skull. She squeezed. Amber eyes flew wide at the small twist and pop of bones being put back to her liking. Rena exhaled slowly and propped her arm beneath her neck.

“Better?” he asked, still slightly horrified.

“Not really,” she admitted as her eyes began to drift shut again. “How’re the others?”

Hands were parted and taken back to their respective owners when the outer flap of the tent was unzipped. The second unzipped as Gladio put the bloodied cotton balls in a small paper bag from the kit.

“How ya feeling?”

Noct crouched into the tent, wrapped in as many layers as he had and clutching a steaming mug. The thick rice pudding she’d taught Ignis earlier was spiced, creamy and sweet. It would sit heavy and warm in the stomach, like a cat on a lap.

“Peachy,” she smirked weakly as he burrowed into a sleeping bag. “You?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty good. Just making sure our favourite hunter’s okay,” he spoke around a hot mouthful of food, breathing out to cool it away from burning his tongue. Gladio snorted and shook his head. His attention was brought back to her when she spoke.

“She’s fine.”

“She’s bloody well not,” Ignis noted as he ducked into the tent.

Busy tails and tongues were quick to greet her as the dogs hurried around her. She was nudged and pawed at until they were content she was alright, or at least alive. Tired fingers played in their coat. Ignis swapped Gladio a mug for the paper bag before he went back outside to throw it on the fire. He returned with Prompto in tow.

“Well, hey stranger!”

“Shh!” came from the two eldest.

“Little loud, Prom. Little loud,” Rena said quietly, her voice hoarse and quiet.

“Sorry!” he whisper-shouted as he crept across the tent to cloak himself in his sleeping bag.

“Right, yes, as I was saying, she’s most definitely _not_ fine-,”

“I’m alive,” she slurred, already half asleep.

“You’re lucky,” Ignis corrected, before chewing a spoonful of rice. A thought gave him a troubled frown. “All those hunts alone… What if something like this had happened?”

“Yeah,” Prompto let out as a thought was provoked. “I mean, you’d be dead.”

She shrugged.

The realisation came over the boys, one by one. She’d been risking her life for a decade; weighing hazard against prize; cost against gain. _Potentially, might_ and _if_ were words she knew well and never ignored. Possibilities were endless, and some spelled her end. All for the benefit of a few others. People to feed. Bills to pay. Life to maintain. She’d given up her own for theirs. Being a child wasn’t an option if she’d wanted to survive.

Rena’s first kill had been herself.

“We all die on time, but I’m not going out on someone else’s terms.”

There it was. All her stubbornness and independence summarised. Everything that had kept her alive and would continue to do so. It was an attitude she couldn’t shake. It kept her moving, flowing like the river and strong like trees she still called home.

“I daresay you’ve got a point,” Ignis raised his mug in toast as he took off his glasses. He’d only just set them down when his phone lit up in a bright blue that made Rena screw her eyes shut. “Apologies.”

“S’fine.”

Ignis scrolled through his phone, read the new message and typed a fast but descriptive reply to the recipient. When he set it back down and began to rearrange the bedrolls, Gladio raised an eyebrow. Ignis caught it and informed him while he worked around the barely conscious Rena and her companionate guard dogs.

“Marshal’s updated. She’s… not going to like what he had to say.”

“No more hunts?”

“No, but he’s decided this is the last of the season, purely from a weather perspective. He doesn’t want us freezing to death.”

“Yeah, he’d like it better if we got torn apart, okay, I get it. Is Cor _okay?”_ Noctis blurted, scraping the last of his food in the tin mug as quietly as he could.

“Not at all,” Ignis said flatly, almost enough to incite sarcasm as if he shared Noct’s sentiment. He set a bedroll down on the other side of Rena and stood to hang the lamp on the small hook at the peak of the tent, only to dim it to a barely present glow. “But she’s to take at least a week’s leave.”

“Disciplinary?” Gladio asked, brows drawn as if he was prepared to argue the decision.

“Gods no. Medical. Head injuries have nasty effects, lasting ones too, some of which can include mood swings which is why _you_ are sleeping _here._ If she lashes out in a posttraumatic dream or, Astrals forbid, has another fit, you know what to do and are likely the only one strong enough to restrain her if need be.”

Facing Gladio and away from the rest of the group, Ignis small smile sent another message.

_Keep her close._

“So I’m getting the shit beaten outta me in the middle of the night?”

“Not any different from any other day! She kicks your ass every morning.”

“Yeah? How’d you know, Charmless? You’re never even awake when you get to training,” he jested.

Gladio set himself down on the bedroll and forced every last fibre of his body to lie flat on his back. He refused the urge to turn onto his side and hold her. To feel her breathe. Feel her heart. She had one, as much as she hid it. He didn’t need to see it. He didn’t need it spelled out for him. He’d felt it. So he lay back, a hand at the back of his neck and one on his stomach as they itched for hers. He focused on the lamp. He’d given away enough for one day.

One by one, their breaths changed. Noctis’ small, snuffled snores were muffled against Ignis’ shoulder as his own rhythm became shallow but slow. After the standard period of silence, Prompto’s quiet mumblings began. Gladio was still wide awake and exhausted. He stood to turn off the lantern and then settled back down.

The pitch black of the tent curled around them all with the plush comfort of sleep.

It coiled too tightly around Prompto.

He woke with a start as one of its silvery claws nicked his side. Each time he tried to sleep again, something woke him. Even when Ochre made his usual midnight transfer and curled against his side, it did nothing to settle him. It was just going to be one of those nights.

It was either ten minutes or an hour in that timeless abyss before Prompto turned onto his belly and patted blindly for his phone. When he felt the small charm that dangled from it, he brought the phone under his chin and wiggled further down into the sleeping bag, far enough to pull the thick cover over his head and stop himself from waking the rest of them. The light of his phone was still blinding enough for him to squint as he turned the brightness down. Even then, it was still too bright. Prompto scrolled through emails, texts, apps, medias, edited photos he’d edited before and got so bored as to leave reviews on products he’d bought over the last six months.

A quiet sound came from his right. Not one of the dogs, he could tell that much. He dismissed it as Ignis mumbling in his sleep again, as he often did. The advisor had too many thoughts and they often spilled at night.

It came again, a weak and hoarse whimper. A deeper hum replied.

Brows pinched together and led by curiosity, he poked his head and phone from the sleeping bag. It gave him enough light to faintly make them out.

Both fast asleep, Gladio had wrapped his arms around her; one hooked tight about her waist while the other supported her neck and head. A paler arm, lacking the ink that marked him, had draped around his neck.

“Gladio…”

The name left her, weak and almost hurt, as she mumbled it into his chest.

“Shh… M’here… Right here,” he replied hoarsely.

Gladio carefully kissed the side of her head as he temporarily surfaced from drowsiness. Clinging to each other, one sighed a deep breath and the other followed with their own.

Prompto hid back under his sleeping bag and let himself grin. Something about it had made his throat tighten. They’d sought each other out, and _reacted_ , even in sleep. They were bound closely, and not just in their arms. Prompto had been allowed to witness, by some chance of the night, the bond they’d forged in secrecy. He was privy to that which was theirs. He’d seen it first and watched it grow in snapshots, in small moments. There were times he’d ached to take another photograph; to document what they were hiding from the rest of the world.

His hand left his sleeping bag and searched for his camera.

Their first picture was still there.

Hands held each other whilst faces held a blush, a grin, and eyes that were only for each other.


	16. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a stark reminder of her humanity, Rena's trip home leaves its marks and Gladio is quick to notice them. After so long away, home is strange and the city is familiar. A moment of clarity reveals just how much her life has changed, and on more than freak circumstance and consequence.

A yawn that made the world stop and threatened to split the sides of her mouth pulled Rena taut as if she were a ribbon between two hands. For a moment, it blinded her to the frost blooming in filigree on the windows, tinted a deep orange by the streetlights outside. They spread like harmless, frozen flames. Ochre caught sight of it, perched on the armchair and decided to try to lick it off.

“Hey,” she warned. The dog stopped but didn’t move, tongue pressed to the glass as his breath fogged it. “Enough.”

He turned and came away from the window, only to trot up to Rena, tail swishing and a pleased butter-wouldn’t-melt look on his face. She shook her head and padded into the kitchen. The small six tealights burned at the fogged window. One flame to carry each of the Astrals during the darkest days of the year and into the new.

As she switched off the gas ring and drained the pasta, the sudden skittering of nails and paws across the floor and deep sniffs announced an arrival. Gladio had only gotten the first of his usual three knocks in before she called through the apartment.

“It’s open!”

Feet shuffled on the welcome mat. Shoes landed with a quiet thud next to her own, most recently worn, pair.

“How ya doing, buddy?” he asked, undoubtedly scratching Ochre’s head only for Seyna to push her brother out of the way. “Hey girlie, how’ve you been?”

Rena snorted and shook her head as she added the pasta to another pan. The creamy, earthy scent of mushrooms and softened garlic rose from it with rosemary and thyme, alongside the smokiness of bacon. She stepped from side to side in the small kitchen and gathered her supplies; a bowl, a fork and a glass of water. Her attention came back to the pan as it sizzled. Rena gave it a quick shake and a stir.

“You hungry?”

“No thanks, already ate,” he called.

“Good ‘cause I only made enough for one… Well… Maybe two, but I’m hungry as fuck,” she mumbled the last part. Rena poured the food into the bowl and moved to the sink to rinse the pan.

“Mmh, smells good,” said Gladio.

She could feel him in the room. Definitely there, warm, strong, but not intrusive. Merely present and making the place better for it. Rena stepped back to the bowl. Broad arms slipped around her waist as the weight of him rested easy on her, and the scents of salt and sage wound through the steam-soft air. He nudged the back of her head and took a deep sniff of her hair. Lips pressed behind her ear.

The familiar soft gravel in his voice made her smile. It didn’t sound the same through the phone.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Good trip?”

Rena took a deep breath and sighed her answer out on it. “Yeah. Yeah, it was alright.”

“Thought you were supposed to be taking it easy,” he teased, to tell her off. Rena rolled her eyes at the cupboard as she took a sip of water.

“I did. I got bored.”

“So… you drove most of the way across Lucis? In the middle of winter?”

“…Yeah. Nothing better for cabin fever than a road trip,” she said simply, as if it were completely logical. “Oh, guess who I met.”

Gladio rested his chin on her shoulder as she pulled her phone from the dock and opened it up, tapping into her photos. She held it up to show him.

It was a baby. Little, deep pink and smooth, already topped by a dark tuft of hair as it lay loosely swaddled in wheat-coloured linens. A broad grin pushed at Gladio.

“N’aww. Got a name?”

“Miss Nina Flore Falx. She’s a little early to the party, but apparently she didn’t want to miss new year.”

“She gonna be okay?” Gladio asked, fairly sure that she was, as he pressed a kiss to Rena’s neck. Nothing could be wrong in the world right now. Not in his world, anyway.

“She’ll be fine. Small, but we’ve known smaller to pull through. Dad said Mollie was only five or so pounds when she was born, so it makes sense,” Rena nodded, scrolling to another picture of her niece.

Mollie, though tired looking, was well. Still plump and round-faced, rosy-cheeked and smiling as she held her firstborn. Her husband, Sepe, was much the same. His black hair was in ringlets around his ears, whereas Mollie’s deep brown barely held a wave. He was worked by the fields as much as he worked them.

Gladio took a quick glance at Rena. Far paler than her older sister, she was still darker than her mother. He cast his mind back to their visit to Cleigne in September; the furthest he’d ever been from home and the furthest from the comforts of the city any of them had ever been. The last time she’d been home until her more recent trip. The features of her father materialised from his memory. Tall, long-limbed and once strong enough to work fields, the merchant life and disease had withered him thin. Inky black eyes that held a fun spark were Gladio’s boldest memory of Philomenos Lauritas. Short salt and pepper hair, and a deep tan from years at sea between Lucis and Altissia had made him swarthy. Phil was the complete opposite of Rena’s mother. Glacial eyes, a short, stout build and icy blonde hair were stark as coal frozen in ice.

Rena was somewhere in the middle, between both of them. The balanced blend of her parents, and yet like neither.

“Looks like her mom.”

“All babies look like Mollie,” Rena countered between targeted puffs to cool a forkful of pasta. “She’s got that kind of face.”

“How’s she holding up?” Gladio asked, nuzzling into Rena’s neck.

“Pretty good. The whole eat-shit-cry-sleep-baby thing hasn’t worn her out yet, so she’s good for now. She was a bit freaked after the birth, but that’s expected.”

“Sepe?”

“Ah, he’s always happy. One of those chipper people,” she said.

Rena set her phone on the counter and swiped through the various pictures of Cleigne in its winter colours. Somehow she’d found colour in a world as blank as a new page. Deep snow, all the way up to the bonnet of her rental, blanketed the region. In spring it would melt and flood both mountain and field to rinse away the old year. Another photograph was of icicles dangling from a powerline. One had smashed on the road below and its shrapnel covered the breadth of the road in large, pale chunks.

Then the marvels came. Cleigne’s jewels came to show. Winter berries so red and juicy it looked as though they were bubbles and would pop if touched, let alone picked. The evergreens were deeper in their hues with little competition from deciduous neighbours. Bared and clawed, they took root in an ale-toned dawn and bound it to the ground. Old Lestallum only turned on their lights when it was pitch black outside, and no matter how much drinking had occurred, always turned them off before turning in. Overloading the line between the aged capital and the younger that fed it light was a well-grounded fear. Communications in the entirety of southern Cleigne would’ve been lost. So when Old Lestallum lit up, it was in the twinkling tones of a time gone by.

“How’s your dad?”

The mumbled question came just as she chewed. They rocked side to side, a slow and careful rhythm, as she ate and Gladio was warmed by her presence again.

“He’s… He’s good,” she said, as if it surprised her. “Treatment’s working. Mollie’s been taking him to and from appointments, but more Sepe nowadays. The cold’s sort of put a stopper on it, but… it’s two steps forward, one step back. First round’s nearly paid off, too.”

“Kids?”

“Also good. Trying to kill each other, as usual,” she remarked, quickly chewing a small mouthful before elaborating. Gladio slowly became drunk on the honey of her hair and the newly refreshed pine that never left her skin. “Liked the baby until they realised she gets all the attention and she’s not a toy.”

He snorted a laugh, nose rubbing under her ear as his smile pressed to the back of her neck. An altogether more sobering thought made him frown for a moment.

“Your mom?”

“She’s fine,” Rena nodded.

Gladio gave her another quick kiss to the temple before he leant back, gathered her hair to the shoulder he’d left and then pressed a kiss to the right side, the one that bore a scar. Eyes half-closed, he peeked down at the bowl. The creamy sauce was rich and decadent as it coated the pasta, the entire bowl studded with the spoils of winter; woody herbs, cured garula and mushrooms, the transient life from death. He took another deep draw of the scents, both of her and what she could create.

Her cheek was warm when he met it with his lips. Already smiling at the blushing he expected, and always tried to cause, Gladio pressed his forehead to her temple and let his eyes open.

She was red. Too red. Furious purple and black that clouded to crimson as it neared the edges of a dark bruise on her cheek.

“What the hell is that?”

His hand splayed on her back as he stepped to the side and tilted her face to him with the other cupping the unbruised cheek.

“I just-.”

“Rena, what the _hell_ happened?”

He thought the worst.

His mind was racing back to Cleigne. To a cold woman with an even icier temperament, and a furious habit that left her smoking like a dragon and made her itch for that treasure between draws. To Rena herself. How she’d flinched. The floorboards of that house were dulled smooth by years of rough living. To her, they were coated in broken glass so thick and cutting she could barely stand still, let alone eat or sleep in the family home.

She found bare stone and flattened straw far more comfortable. She’d called the shed _home,_ not the cabin. Though she’d never admitted it. He just knew.

“Gladio, it’s not-.”

Rena shook her head as a deep frown worried Gladio’s face. He stayed fixed on evergreen eyes. One was half-bloodshot, a deep scarlet red from the outer edge to the iris. Earthen hues begged for explanation, and hoped he was wrong. Rena took a deep, steadying breath before she spoke with clear finality in a calm and smooth tone.

“I hit a patch of ice and wrecked the car just after Saulhend.”

At his unchanged frown, open mouth and silence, Rena shouldered out of the flannel and revealed a strip of bruising that ran diagonally across from her collarbone and disappeared into her charcoal vest top. The edges of her seatbelt had even grazed and burned her in narrow lines.

“There. Happy?”

“No?!” he shook his head. Gladio squeezed her into a hug and ran his hands over her arms, forehead pressed to the crown of curls. “You crashed a damn car! You didn’t say anything-  Ifrit’s balls, Rena…”

“Yeah, but it’s fine. I’m fine. Lucky it was in Leide. The girl from Hammerhead gave me a tow. Cindy? Blonde, really sweet. You’d like her. A couple miles west, though, and I’d have been walking back.”

Gladio cupped her cheeks, careful of the bruised side even as she didn’t wince and looked up at him with eyes that only acted to slow him down, make him remember to breathe.

“One more hit to that noggin’…” He shook his head and bit the inside of his lip.

“I do _not_ have a concussion,” Rena enunciated, even as the last words were shaken by a laugh when Gladio began to press his fingertips lightly over her skull in a mock test for fractures. She corrected herself. “ _Again_. I don’t have a concussion _again_.”

He gave a ragged sigh. Amber hues searched the dark green, more to steady himself than question the honesty in hers.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah. Sweet Shiva- maybe tell me next time you try to put yourself in a hospital?”

“Oh hell no, I wouldn’t do that. Fuckin’ hate hospitals. Too many people. Not enough space. Smell funny-.”

“You’ve been to the infirmary three times. _Three_ ,” he said, eyes wide under a less serious frown.

“And I fuckin’ hated it every time.”

The hinting smile that delivered her rough words in a simple tone of admission was one he’d missed. Gladio shook his head.

“You’re crazy.”

“Yep.”

“Completely…”

Gladio met her smile with his own as he dizzied in her eyes.

“Damn…”

He rubbed the end of his nose against hers, from side to side, as both sets of dark lashes fell shut.

“Crazy,” he whispered, lips brushing against hers.

They met sweetly. Slightly parted lips pressed and closed against each other. He tasted like chocolate, the dark kind with peppermint through it. His favourite and hers. A deep hum rumbled from his chest. It was met by a warm beat of kiss-muffled laughter and a hand that molded to the back of his neck and warmed it. He buried one in her hair, palm guiding her even as she led the kiss, and fingers tangled in the dark mess of curls. The others brushed, met and entwined, while hearts were happy to hear their echoing partners again.

* * *

Four loud knocks. The dogs had started to bark before the first.

“Alright, alright. I’m coming,” she groaned and shook her head as she pulled on a pair of leggings.

Rena ran her hand along the wall and almost tripped over the dogs on her way to the door. Another three knocks came fast and uneven. She winced and drew a hissed breath when she flipped the lamp switches. Even as soft a glow as that coming from the paper moons was a bright, piercing slap from the darkness of being face down in bed. They knocked again, a cheerful seven-note rhythm tapped into the door.

“Just coming,” called Rena, still hoarse from sleep, while she sent the dogs to sit on the armchair.

They did as told, begrudgingly curling up on the leather as more interesting scents lingered outside the door. Her hand landed heavy in the shallow bowl that held her keys before she dragged them out and felt her way to the apartment key. Rena went on sound. The ribbit of the key sliding into the lock, the downward stroke as she turned it before the final upward click. She opened the door wide and blinked at them.  

The first overwhelming scent was vodka. This was promptly followed by a heavy smoke of tequila. Then sharp clear aftershave cut through it all. All three of them had flushed cheeks, messy hair and grins.

“What the _fuck_ are-?”

“He insisted.”

Gladio stumbled in, bringing the first wave of cold winter air with him, before he gathered the sense to use the walls for support. Prompto followed, waving just a little too violently at a still drowsy Rena. Finally, Ignis stepped through the door, the calculations of his graceful movements bared as though the final inked answer had at last shown the pencilled workings used to find it.

“Good evening,” Ignis drawled as he smiled politely and put far too much effort into speaking clearly.

“Alright?”

“Exshellent. A wonderful night, by all accounts, isn’t that right lads?”

Ignis’ question was answered by giggling. Quiet laughs bubbled from Prompto as he lay on the floor and fell prey to the dogs. Nudged, licked and stepped on, he quickly deepened his shade of bright red to beetroot through a breathless string of snickers.

“Dunno, Iggy, it was kinda fast and- _woah.”_

Gladio held his hands up in surrender after almost walking into her. With her eyes still narrowed to keep out what little light passed a thick bedhead, Rena squinted up at a very wobbly Gladio. His eyes were closed as he cocked his head and continued his ramble.

“Woah, woah, _woah._ Excuse you, no thank me…wait… nah, yeah that was right… _Anyway!_ I have a girlfriend, sorry… she’s fuckin’ awesome…”

Rena’s mouth had finished a yawn and simply stayed open, though not at full span, as she blinked at him. She drew breath to give an explanation when a chortling mess interrupted her from the floor on her right.

“No, no! It’s funny, just let him.”

“He’s done this before?” she asked Prompto, eyebrows formed into a frown as Gladio leant his head back, throat exposed, and ranted to the ceiling.

“…can beat the shit outta me and it’s so damn _cool_ …”

“Twice,” Ignis said. He nodded a few too many times before continuing with a devilish smirk twisting at finely sculpted features. “We recorded the second one.”

Prompto held his camera up and wiggled it with a slow wink, only to yelp when it fell from his hand and stopped an inch from his face, saved by the camera strap as it wrapped around his palm.

“Oh good,” she sighed as she folded her arms and turned back to Gladio as he paced between the walls and carried on, oblivious to her presence.“Oh my fucking gods…”

“…she’s so beautiful and she hates it when I tell her but _dammit_ she’s just- _aagghhh,”_ Gladio gave a loud sigh through a grin and shook his head.

Rena’s cheeks flushed a deep pink.

“…smartass and she cooks, oh gods she cooks and it’s _good_ \- yours is real good too, Iggy! Real good!” he stopped pacing only to point at Ignis. He tilted forward in the indicated direction before he took a step to stop himself from falling flat on his face and crushing Prompto. “but shhhh! It’s a secret… nobody’s supposed to know…”

“Oh fuck, what did you do to him?”

“Us? What did _you_ do to him? He’s never done this before,” Prompto hiccupped from under the coffee table, knees snapping together with a wheeze when Ochre stepped on his groin.

Rena turned to Ignis. He swayed back and forth on his feet, arms folded, and a lazy smirk fixed on fine features. After a moment, he felt watched and met her tired stare.

“How many?”

Ignis frowned, momentarily distracted when Gladio shouldered into a wall only to apologise profusely, and shook his head while he spoke.

“Eight… Nine, maybe?”

“Drinks?”

“Bars,” he said flatly.

Rena despaired at the floor, only to span her hand across her brow and rub at her temples. “Oh, fuck…”

“Fine establishments, they were. Magnificent. Never had such a dry martini in my life.”

She breathed a sigh before intercepting Gladio.

“Sorry! I won’t, I can’t, I will _not-.”_

“Gladio, hey, it’s me,” she said as she gently squeezed his arms at the elbow. He’d barely opened his eyes when a slow, broad grin began to spread across his face.

“Hi…”

“Hey, you alright?” she asked. Rena smiled at the flushed drunken mess of him. Amber eyes were full of whiskey while the same acrid nectar had reddened his lips.

“Yeah,” said Gladio, after far too much time spend nodding.

“Good night out-?”

She was interrupted as he pulled her in for a hug and swivelled from side to side. The weight of him drifted to one side. Rena held fast and let him steady himself before she shook her head. The deep scent of his aftershave had been burned away with liquor. There was still comfort in his arms. It was returned to him when she reached up to smooth his hair. Gladio had propped his chin on her head and fixed a hand in the curls as he gently stroked them. His eyes flew open upon noticing the other two in the room. They swiftly creased with his smile as he pointed to Rena.

“Guys! Found her! Look! She’s so fluffy…” he spoke loudly before he trailed off, squeezing a handful of her hair. An altogether more troubled look came over his face. Gladio frowned, held her by the shoulders and leant back. He was met by raised eyebrows and blushed cheeks that almost made him forget his new concern. “Do we have any noodles?”

Rena narrowed her eyes as she thought for a second. “Yeah, they’re in the kitchen. If you can find them, you can have them.”

“Great!” Gladio smiled excitedly.

He turned away before stepping back and pressed a quick, clumsy kiss to her cheek. As he tripped over his own feet on the way to the kitchen and his beloved snack, Rena turned to the others.

Prompto was curled on the couch between the dogs, whilst Ignis had perched at his own end and was absent in deep thought that concerned the small glass vase and the deep red carnations it held. Both jade and cornflower hues flicked to her at the same time. Ignis pursed his lips, while Prompto’s twitched around an excuse.

“He really never used to do that, right Iggy?” the blond asked for confirmation as he turned to the man on his left.

As drunk as the other two and yet he maintained his grace, Ignis had one leg crossed over the other, though they did keep tilting heavily, and readjusted his glasses before answering with his hands folded in his lap. A cupboard slammed in the kitchen, only to be followed by a slurred apology.

“Never. First I’ve seen of it and we _do_ only get to do this once a year. He used to disappear around three in the morning and then show up at training the next day as if nothing had happened,” he raised his brows and spoke in an informative tone. A dull thud came from behind her as yet another cupboard refused to reveal his precious noodles. Ignis swept his focus to Rena and turned his head with too much momentum for him to steady immediately. “Have you installed some sort of homing device?”

“No,” she yawned and shook her head. Her dark brows fell into a frown. “Did he really give that spiel more than once?”

“Oh, yes.”

“It’s adorable!”

“Quite endearing.”

“Oh, for fuck’s-.”

“A-ha! Hahaha! Found ya!”

Rena turned over her shoulder to peek inside the kitchen as he placed a cup noodle down on the worktop with all too much effort and precision. She snorted and shook her head. When she turned back to the others, they were comfortable, heavy with sleep and drink, and watching with the warm eyes afforded by colder times.

Ignis’ head fell back against the sofa, before he lolled forwards to look at the blond draped over his lap, puffing his fringe from his eyes as it fell over flushed cheeks trying to burn away the alcohol. His fine fingers were stroking gently through Prompto’s hair in an idle innocence, though it did have the younger melting over the trouser-clad thighs.

“We ought to go.”

“Aww! But- but puppies!” he protested as he gestured to the dogs and pouted with the biggest, saddest eyes he could give.

“Prompto...”

“You’ll see them on Monday, remember?” she assured. Rena knitted her brows as she folded her arms and tried to stay awake and upright. Prompto choked around another excuse before he admitted defeat and stood. Ignis held his jacket out on the end of one elegant finger before slipping into his own.

“Want me to call a taxi?”

“No, no, it’s alright. We’ve one waiting outside… Don’t we?”

Rena padded to the window and peeked outside. Amongst the dim glow of the streetlights and the frost-glittered cars, the bright yellow sign on top of a black cab shone in the dark, quiet street.

“Yeah, it’s still there,” she said. Ignis breathed a silent sigh of relief before he wrapped a lilac silk scarf around his neck once more. They gathered at the door and folded into their layers as she walked over and stretched with another yawn. “Thanks for bringing him back… I think.”

“Not at all,” Ignis waved a hand. “He practically threw himself from the car.”

Heavy footsteps came from behind her as Gladio approached and stepped to the side to toe off his shoes. He met Ignis in a hug, the hollow thuds of hands against backs as they embraced.

“G’night, man.”

“Goodnight, Gladio. Excellent effort this year.”

“Same to you. Nearly had me at that fifth place… Did it have couerl wallpaper, or was I just seeing the same stain over’n’over again?”

Prompto had initially looked excited. His expression quickly wilted when Gladio wrapped his arms around the small blond and squeezed, hard enough to pick him up before he set him down again. A large, tanned hand ruffled the pale chaos of his hair heavily.

“Gnaa! Get off! Staaahhhp!”

Gladio grinned and slipped a hand onto Rena’s waist as he stepped slowly and wrapped around her, chin resting on her shoulder.

“G’night Blondie. Thanks for tagging along. Hope ya enjoyed it.”

“Well, I mean- yeah! I did! Until you did that! Now it’s all _mlegh!”_

At his incessant attempts to tame his hair back into the style he’d carefully prepared at the start of the night, Gladio snorted and watched the two of them with a contented smile. His eyes widened as a thought played, mischievous and tempting as a lure on the surface of a pond as it had only just begun to still. He nudged against her head gently and whispered at a more than sufficient volume.

“Can we do the thing?”

“What thing?”

“The thing in the bed.”

Rena’s brows drew together as a wry smile twisted Ignis’ lips, too drunk to be inhibited.

_Please don’t let it be that._

“The sleeping thing?” she asked, mostly as a suggestion to steer him away from activities he was far too drunk for.

“Noooo, the _other_ thing. Y’know…” he trailed, grinning as he pressed a slow, messy kiss to her neck.

“O-oh!” Prompto gaped. He’d flushed scarlet all the way down his neck, the tips of his ears glowing as they showed through blond locks. Crystalline eyes had widened as pale lips twitched between shock and a nervous smile. He almost jumped out of his skin when Ignis turned sharply towards him with a knowing, wry smile.

“Come along, Prompto. Best leave them to it.”

Rena fixed on Ignis with an unreadable expression, finally awake enough to put on her armour.

“Alright, night guys,” she said quickly. The filed out of the door as Gladio stayed fixed to her like a very large, tanned, tattooed limpet that reeked of whiskey and noodles. “Let me know when you get home.”

“G’night!” Prompto sang, loudly enough for even a very inebriated Ignis to hush him.

“Shh! Ahem, yes, goodnight. To both of you,” he nodded. The pair of them turned away and began to carefully take on the stairs. “We’ll be keeping an eye on the seismometer.”

“Goodnight Ignis!” Rena shook her head and tried not to laugh as a quiet chuckle bubbled from the stairs.

She waited for the main door of the tenement to close before she shut her own and steered back into the apartment. Rena turned in Gladio’s arms. Heavy hands held her hips. Whiskey had dulled the usually sharp eyes, thrown fire into his cheeks and breath as he trapped hit bottom lip between his teeth, squeezed the tender flesh before releasing it. He deflated when she shook her head again.

 “No,” she said, gentle but firm. Gladio pouted and croaked his question in return.

“Why?”

“Because you are very fuckin’ drunk.”

He huffed in defeat. His stubbled cheek burned under her palm when she reached up to cup his face. Gladio looked up from the floor with warm, drowsy eyes.

“C’mon.”

Gladio sighed and nodded. “M’kay.”

“Alright, let’s get your teeth brushed. Then I’m going back to bed, ‘cause fuck this,” Rena yawned.

She led him to the bathroom before steering him in and sat him down on the closed toilet seat. The edge of the bath seemed a bit risky, what with high chances of him slipping backwards and getting stuck and low chances of Rena helping him. She left him with toothbrush in hand, toothpaste already on the bristles and a quick kiss to the forehead.

Rena had only just collapsed back onto the bed when a whinge came from the door of her room. She lifted her head up. Ochre danced restlessly. Her groan was muffled into the bed before she got up, shoved her feet into her old boots, leashed the dogs and traipsed down the stairs with them.

Their breath plumed in the dim silent street. At night, the bricks of the tenements were washed in navy and ink, defined by their shadows. The sudden scuttle of a cat didn’t make her jolt anymore. Neither did the distant backfiring of a car, or the closer slam of a door. They were no more concerning than a snapped branch, an owl’s cry or the tearing of the wind through the trees as it bluffed to fell them. She was adjusting; changing her definition of home. At times, she found the city air easier to breathe.

Once the dogs had done what they would, she climbed the stairs and gave each a biscuit to settle them before she turned out the lamps and called it a night. The only light in the apartment flooded from the open bathroom. Rena padded closer. The soft scrape of his toothbrush followed no particular rhythm. She shook her head, leant against the doorframe with her shoulder and peeked into the bathroom.

Gladio was where he’d left her but without a shirt and his jeans gathered stubbornly around his ankles. He frowned and tried to push them off with his feet. It was only when he paused and amber eyes flicked up, round and caught, that she snorted a laugh.

Rena went over, stood on his jeans and steered him to stand with her forearm braced against his and a supportive hold on his elbow. He stepped out of them. She sat him back down and pinned the loosened toe of his socks to the floor with her feet. Gladio pulled his own out obediently as she gently kicked the clothing to one corner of the bathroom, slipped out of her leggings, gathered a cloth and dampened it with warm water, before going back to him.

“Ffotera doin?” he asked through a mouthful of toothpaste, eyebrows gathered in softly curious frown.

“You stink but I’m not shoehorning you out of the bath, so this’ll do,” Rena said.

She swiped the cloth over his forehead, temples, nose, all over his face before she wiped the aftershave from his neck, then sweat and spilled liquor from his chest. Gladio finished brushing his teeth and stumbled towards the sink to spit and rinse.

A huge yawn pulled at him when he plodded into the bedroom. He sat down on the edge of the bed, shook his head before frowning at how dizzy it made him, and flopped back onto the soft sheets. They smelled like her. Honey. Pine. Petrichor. That swirling combination was worked into the fabric. He took a deep breath and hummed on his exhale as a sleepy smile pushed at his lips. He ran his hand over the bed. Even drunk, he found the dip in the mattress that marked her spot, the absence of her sleeping. Another dent, lighter from less presence, was to its side. But it was there. He’d been there.

Dark lashes parted slowly when he heard her shut the bathroom door and slip into the bedroom. Gladio sat up. The motion drained the blood from his head as the dim and soft colours of the room swiped as though they were a perfect painting, still wet, only to have a hand drag the marks into undefined streaks. She set something down on the floor by his side of the bed. He focused on it. It was a red plastic basin, bold and bright against the oak floorboards.

Sleepy, clumsy hands found hers and intertwined. Even drunk, it was as natural as drawing breath. Gladio blinked at her slowly. She was all haze and soft glow in the bedroom light, the mess of her hair showing its brazen strays as sunset shone from the lamp and cast shadows through the forest in her eyes.

“Please,” he pouted as he held the backs of her knees and rubbed the sides with his thumbs. Rena smiled gently and shook her head.

“Maybe tomorrow, alright?” she offered her compromise. Gladio grumbled in his throat and leant forward until his head pressed against the soft warmth of her stomach. Fingers combed through his hair. “There is something you can do for me, though.”

His eyes flew open. Gladio sat up straight and gave her a questioning look before locking his focus to the waistband of her underwear. He swallowed slowly and felt lazy, heavy blood trickle towards the pit of his stomach as his mouth watered. His hands slipped up towards her underwear, only for something to interrupt his view.

“You can drink this nice, big, cold glass of water,” she shook it carefully while holding out her other hand. Two small white pills were in her palm. “And take these nice little bitch mints. Alright?”

He sighed, nodded, took the glass and held out his palm for the painkillers. They went down easily, washed with half of the glass. Exhaustion began to lace his eyelashes with lead and made them heavy. That deepening weight began to drag the rest of him with it, down into the silken bliss of sleep. He was about to flop again when a hand on his back held him up.

“Finish the water before you spill it, c’mon.”

The soft coaxing was all he needed. Gladio took a few final gulps and drained the glass. He lay on his side to place the glass on the bedside table, as quietly as he could, before the bed took him in its arms.

“Rena…?”

“I’m here. What d’you need?” she asked as she stifled a yawn and switched off her bedside lamp. Gladio swallowed and fought the word out before sleep could silence him.

“You.”

She huffed a laugh through her nose before she settled down behind him and slung her arm over his waist, curled up for her fingers to blindly trace the feathers on his arm. A frown gathered Gladio’s brows as he wrestled against sleep.

“Too sappy?”

“Nah, you’re alright. Big ol’ sapling.”

Gladio chuckled quietly. He was silenced by the warmth of her pressing close to his back.  

“Go to sleep,” she mumbled.

He was cosy and solid, but softened by fatigue, as she wrapped around him. One arm folded to her chest, the other hooked around his middle as the tide of his breathing rocked him drowsily. A smile creased his eyes when she nuzzled against his shoulder, gave him a quick kiss on the back, and settled down.

It wasn’t pain when he woke up. It was just _wrong._ His entire being burned with warmth, the uncomfortable kind that signalled a coming cold or flu, or the type that plagued him and drove him to sleep in a cold bath when spring came to flare his allergies. He felt as though he’d swallowed a wire scourer, or that rats were scraping in his stomach. There was a sour taste in his mouth and his head…

_Ugh._

“Ow…”

A soft snort came from beside him. Gladio didn’t dare open his eyes yet.

“How bad was it?” he croaked. His voice was nothing but the thick, claggy ashes soaked with last night’s liquors.

“Oh, you brought shame and dishonour,” Rena said with mock grandeur. The low, quiet smooth tone was less abrasive than others he’d heard after such nights, rare as they were.

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. You were _very_ social. Wouldn’t stop talking. Might’ve said something… revealing? Maybe?”

“Ah shit…” he sighed. His head was in a vice and some sick bastard was tightening it around his temples until his skull threatened to crack.

“Kept it surprisingly anonymous. For a minute there, I thought you had another girl on the go.”

Gladio pried his eyes open to look at her. Soft, almost dewy in the morning, he envied her freshness. She glowed pale in the winter blue dawn that seeped in around a closed blind. She never closed the blind. Pity was a surprising motivator. That and the unwillingness to clean up someone else’s vomit.

“I couldn’t,” he admitted, shaking his head slowly. It distracted him from the swelling migraine.

“I know. You’re a shit liar with no free time. You’re already spread pretty thin.”

“Nothing to do with honour and honesty?”

“Ah yeah, that too. You’ve got a moral compass.”

An affirmative groan left him as he screwed his eyes shut.

“C’mon, up. More bitch mints.”

Safe in the blackness behind closed eyes, he felt her hair over his stomach, the mattress dip to his left as she leant over him. A smooth, cool object was placed in his lap. Rena hooked her arm around his, put her shoulder underneath and pushed until he was sat, propped up on pillows, against the headboard.

His tan drained as though he’d left it behind on the bed, still in his prone position. Gladio clenched his jaw and willed his stomach to sit still. He peeked through almost closed eyes. She was sitting, legs folded, on the bed with a glass of water in one hand and the other in a closed fist around the painkillers.

“Here.”

Gladio grounded himself in the sensation of the cold glass, damp with condensation. He took a careful sip and fought it to smooth a dry mouth and throat. Glass transferred to the other hand, his palm was met with painkillers.

“Don’t have a potion sitting around?”

“Nah. You’re lucky I’ve got those. They came with the first aid kit in the kitchen.”

“Huh.”

“Yep.”

He took the pills and drained the glass slowly. After five minutes of holding it down, Rena patted his stomach twice.

“C’mon. Let’s get some grease in that belly.”

Gladio’s groan of defeat was met by laughter.

* * *

“Gladio?”

“Yeah?” he asked, teeth gritted as he tried to catch his breath.

Rena locked eyes with him and panted her instruction. “Faster.”

“How?!” Gladio lay flat on his back and wiped sweat from his brow before it could chill in the cool room, chest heaving.

“I don’t care, just do it.”

The outstretched hand was bound in dove grey linens, knuckles protected and cushioned, wrist reinforced. Gladio took it. After Rena pulled him to his feet, he shook the momentary fatigue from his head and readied his fists again. She met him in stance.

“Faster,” she urged, reinforcing the instruction with a quick, keen frown.

Gladio grinned and began.

He struck for her side. She dodged. The scuffle of boots across polished floorboards and light impacts were the only thing that kept the training hall from silence. Lungs forced breath to cloud in front of them. Muscles were hot from an hour of hand to hand combat.

Gladio’s shin bumped her thigh, and earned retaliation. Without warning, she hooked her arm around it and threw his balance. Gladio’s voice threw a protest, back beginning to fizz in anticipation of the fall and a hard landing. Room blurred by motion, he caught the edged green eyes widen slightly, only for her to grab his and pull him upright, dodge behind him and pin his other arm over her shoulder. Rena twisted until the joint began to pull until Gladio clenched his jaw and spoke.

“Yield.”

She let go immediately, circled him as he stretched the arm across his chest, before standing ready again. Her hair was gathered in a messy bun and had darkened at her neck where it met sweat dampened skin. The black training leggings and charcoal tank, without her usual utility and thigh belts, kept her smoothed and hard to get a grip of.

She had her edge. It was there in her eyes. The soft features that held hard expression, except when they broke to smile or laugh with him. A sharp focus that simultaneously pierced him and kept him steady.

Rena struck first. The blow glanced off his ribs, merely playing. He twisted to pick her up over his shoulder. She ducked low, grabbed his arm, and turned him.

Each movement she gave earned her retaliation that she was also fast enough to avoid. Flexibility in the small space of a fight was something she had learned through instinct.

They were playing in the blank white of early morning clouds that filled the archways and blinded them to the paddock beyond. Each breath plumed. Every sound fell out into a thick sky the city held close, as though it were stubbornly gathering the sheets around its ears and refusing to wake just yet.

Sweat polished them like dew on grass. This was their morning. They hauled the dawn closer with every moment spent in that room. It was half of their time together. Dawn. Each movement brought them back to life. Reminded them of strength and speed and stubbornness. The fight itself was meditation. It was the rousing of mind, body and soul. It was the white smoke of a newborn fire.

Dusk was a different story. It was for warmth, for slowing down, for fulfilment, satiety and carnal expression. Together or apart, a day wasn’t complete until there had been some linkage with the other; a silent covenant to meet again after sleep wrapped them in a silken hand. Dusk was feeding the flames enough to last until dawn or setting them into inferno.

Rena guarded with her forearms. His strikes fell hard enough to hurt, but not to break. They knew each other’s limits, and that neither would be satisfied unless they were tested. Aches and bruises could be fixed by a hot bath and kisses. Thus, they fought with challenge, but without any more cruelty than was necessary.

He struck for her ribcage. Instead of stepping back, she moved forwards. He hooked his arm around her waist and silently threatened to lift her. Rena tangled her foot behind his ankle. Thoroughly entwined and confused by the swiftness of it, both fell to the ground and landed on their sides.

Gladio was first to move. He rolled her onto her back and pinned his hands either side of her shoulders.

“Yield,” she snorted. Gladio grinned and let his head fall forwards, forehead pressed to her chin. She spoke through a laugh. “That was a fuckin’ mess.”

“Dunno about you, but I’m embarrassed. Don’t think I’ve ever messed somethin’ up that much.”

“You should be. I was having a great time kicking your ass,” Rena feigned sincerity. Gladio shook his head as an idea played through the blood pounding in his head.

“By the looks of things…” he peeked down between them. Months of familiarity had changed more than their relationship; it had seeped into spars as well. When Gladio had rolled over, the action taken through habit, was for her legs to spread around him. “We could have a better time.”

Gladio propped himself up to smirk at her. There was a sinful keenness written in dark green as her own lips curled at one side.

“At work? You’re bad,” she shook her head. Her expression did nothing to dismiss the suggestion.

“You’re a bad influence,” he crooned, low and smoky. Gladio nudged at her jaw and dragged his lips over her throat as one hand wandered down her side to slip under the tank top.

In the cool clouded morning, they were the only warm things in that room. Even the tone of the floorboards had faded dark and dull from years of heavy boots. Steamed breaths shrouded them. Bodies hot with exertion that had barely begun were burning through their clothes, longing to be felt, caressed, grasped and used by each other.

Gladio knew he was getting somewhere when he latched onto her neck and began to work a bruise into her skin. Recently the marks that blossomed on her had all the wonder and beauty of a winter rose, and each was a warm, sparking reminder of his presence. He had his own, of course. He couldn’t rely on his hair to hide them. He could feel them along his collarbone, hidden by the black training shirt, as if they glowed simply upon seeing hers.

“Yeah? I was the _pure_ one, remember? Then you came along and corrupted me, you filthy, _filthy_ bastard,” Rena said through a smile. Gladio halted worrying her neck to observe his fresh mark. His laugh came deep and rich as he nudged her the other way to give it a twin, just below her ear.

“You asked me to,” he mumbled. “I was just helpin’ out a damsel in distress.”

“You know, for being a gentleman, you’re a dog,” she shook her head.

Gladio spoke low and rough against her throat. _“Woof.”_

“That’s just wrong,” she said, though her tone wasn’t entirely convinced.

“You wanna throw me around a little more?” he teased, grazing his teeth along her jaw to meet her in a hungry kiss. Rena hummed and spoke when they parted.

“Depends. Can you walk around with _that_ all day?”

Gladio’s eyes widened when she slipped her hand into his pants and stroked along his length. Her other hand freed the tiny bun from the back of his head and combed the hair out as she tugged him down for another kiss. Gladio met her with a low hum. It fell to a growl when she tightened her grip on his hair and cock at the same time.

She could feel him hardening up in her hand, even as the rest of him turned to putty. Teasing strokes along the smooth length of him, fingertips following the more prominent veins and a gentle bite and tug to his bottom lip pulled a deep, craving sigh from deep in his chest. Rena allowed herself a smirk as lips met again with more force, more need.

He broke off and grazed his teeth to her clavicle, curled over her, as he nipped at the bone. Gladio’s cock was heavy and thick, finally as hard as she wanted him. His hands were all over her. One had slipped down, coursing all the way to her knee before rising again to squeeze her hip. The other was fighting her sports bra for possession of a breast. The dig of blunt fingertips as he grabbed her ass was enough to draw a soft gasp that made him grin against her.

The wetness she’d been waiting for finally arrived as one warm, slick drop oozed from the head of his cock. She pulled him out of his pants and spread the precum over the head before working the next drop from him in slow, deep twists and pulls. A sharper tug at his hair was timed to come with it. His mouth fell open. The groan he let out went straight through her core as he leant his head back, dark lashes fluttered shut and the faintest flush of exertions past and present warming his cheeks. He was drifting with the pleasure. The timing was perfect.

In one quick flurry of motion, she withdrew her hands and put them on his shoulders, pushed against the floor with her legs and flipped Gladio onto his back. The momentary wide eyes and hands held up in surrender and confusion had her laughing as she straddled him.

One blink and he was back. Gladio bit his lip and shook his head, only for his lips to part and almost quiver when she reached down and took him in her hand. Squeezing strokes brought another drop, only for it to be smeared over the length of him. His hands fixed at her hips.

They locked eyes. Rena’s mischievous glint made him smirk. The expression soon left him for an open mouth and pinched brows when she began to grind on him, one hand pressing him to her as she rolled her hips. The craving groan he strangled in his throat only made her grin.

He’d barely heard the brass hoop handle of the door turn when Rena stood and walked away from him. She was halfway to her rucksack when he channelled panic into instinctive sense and stuffed himself back into his pants.

Ignis’ habit of turning around to close the door had granted him that time.

He swept into the room, already dressed for a spar and freshly fuming from the trials of a long morning meeting. Ignis had a very different way of starting his day. He made his way to the bench and set down his kit bag before he shouldered from his training shirt.

Gladio felt a blush rise to his cheeks and fought it away, mortified at the fact it had even begun to blossom. He was partially surprised that he had any blood to spare after most had pooled low in his gut and taken up arms, so to speak.

“Morning,” Ignis sighed as he plucked off his glasses and cleaned them on a fold of his training tank.

“Mornin’.”

“Morning, Iggy,” Rena said calmly, eyes locked on Gladio as she shouldered her rucksack. “How’s today been?”

“Not exactly fantastic,” he began. “Economics meeting this morning, enough to bore anyone…”

Gladio narrowed his eyes as he stood. She only had to glance at his crotch and smirk for him to peek down. He was tenting his training pants. After clenching his jaw, he mouthed at her across the room.

_I’ll get you back._

She shrugged lightly as Ignis finished his report of the morning duties, still fixed on rearranging the files in the satchel he never went anywhere without.

“…It’s just not playing ball, frankly.”

Gladio’s eyes flashed at her when she smirked at Ignis’ choice of words and stood in the open doorway.

“Sounds fuckin’ awful,” Rena frowned sincerely. Gladio hadn’t even been listening, too distracted by trying to force his erection away. “Complete dicks in that meeting. You should tell them to get fucked.”

Gladio subtly and quickly gave her the middle finger. She was fighting a wider grin.

“Bring him down a notch for me, Iggy,” she tipped. “He’s been feeling the whole _big man_ thing this morning.”

Rena flipped him off and ducked through the door after Ignis’ reply.

“Naturally.”

* * *

Three knocks.

Three knocks was all it took to make her grin and put her phone on silent.

Rena cleared her throat and padded to the door. She turned the lock slowly as a dare before opening it by an inch and peeking out at him.

Gladio’s eyes were on the floor as he ran his tongue along his teeth and flexed his jaw. She took a good eyeful of him. Brown leather shoes, he rarely wore sneakers, were well polished and clean. Dark jeans. A deep navy t-shirt hung loose over his abdomen before being drawn taut across his chest. They never did fit right.

Then came the stubbled jaw. The bold features in withheld strength as he watched her with burning eyes.

“Evening.”

“Hi,” he nodded casually, still facing down as warm amber hues flicked up to lock with the one she’d revealed, half of her face obscured by the door.

“Need something?”

“Yeah…” began Gladio. He cocked his head and rested his forearm above his head on the doorframe to lean closer. “Not exactly sure what, though.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” she shrugged and closed the door. Gladio sighed raggedly against the wood. He knocked. The door opened.

“You again.”

“Me again.”

“Figure out what you need?” she asked. She was wearing two expressions again; innocence and knowledge. There was no naivety. She knew exactly what she was doing.

Gladio filled his lungs. The fresh scent of honey wafted from within the apartment. He glanced at her neck. The fresher bruises were a lustrous black, purple, as older marks faded and wilted to yellow speckled with the memories of their former glory, like rose petals. The edges of her hair were darker against a damp neck. She was freshly showered. Still soft from the water. Gladio could almost feel the cream-smooth skin in his hands, against his own, until it was flushed and dampened with sweat and muskier scents.

“Yep.”

“Am I gonna get pounced?”

He closed his eyes and gave a sage nod. “Definitely. I’ll give you a courtesy minute though.”

After being met by more than the usual moment of silence, he opened his eyes to a raised eyebrow as she peeked out of the door.

“Really playing the gentleman card today, aren’t you?”

“I’m always a gentleman,” he said, as though she’d offended him.

“Correction. You’re a gentleman until I shut this door with you on _this_ side.”

“…Correct,” he agreed.

Gladio opened his mouth to protest when she disappeared behind the door. It was pulled open and silenced him. His mouth closed with a pop as he stepped in, toed off his shoes and simultaneously shut the door behind him. At an absence of dogs rushing over to greet him, Gladio’s brows pulled into a frown. He stood and turned, expecting to see her standing beside him. She’d snuck off.

“Dogs?”

“Prom’s got them. He was busy at lunch, so he decided he’d come see them later. They’re at his place.”

Gladio mentally cursed her for being able to throw her voice. He stood in the empty living room and knew it was better to let her reveal herself. Any movements he made would be heard and taken into account to avoid him, and she’d already successfully hidden from him in this apartment once.

“This before or after he choked ‘cause we were eating pineapple?”

“After.”

A quiet sound came from the kitchen, no more than a hand swiping along a counter, he was sure. Gladio moved as quietly as he could. He was most of the way to the plain archway separating the two rooms when he was stopped.

“Gladio…”

Duality had initially confused him. She spoke in a tone that was both a warning and a tease; both hook and lure.

“Yeah?”

“Something about this seems unfair.”

Rena’s tone came between singing and a purr as she remarked on a situation Gladio could only see half of. He took another step towards the kitchen.

“And why’s that?”

“Well, you’re wearing all _that_. You look good, don’t get me wrong, but I just feel a little…”

Gladio was in the kitchen with her, and not much else. Pale skin wore her usual interruptions, the scars from lessons both violent and quiet. Her hair cascaded in a hazy mess to her waist. A bared waist. The only thing on her was a simple pair of black panties. Cotton. High leg. The type she wore every day, and the exact kind he’d once ruined to get to her. His mouth fell open as eyes followed the lines that just felt natural. Each strong curve he craved.

Amber eyes flicked up instantly when she turned on the spot, simply twisting over her shoulder. The flex and twist it pulled through her back, hips and legs tugged something down into his gut. Something divine and bloody, it played in the residual heaviness she’d set in him earlier. Rena had barely started to smirk before he was on her.

Pushed flush to the wall and held in a rapturous kiss, her hum was met by a deeper rendition as his hands roamed and squeezed in a fever. She tugged at his shirt until he leant back enough to have it pulled over his head. He was warm, solid and smooth under her hands. Planes of muscle demanded splayed fingers and smoothing palms. There was never enough of him. The faint ridges of him flexed under her when she bit at his bottom lip.

It was scratching her nails down his chest that drew the first depraved groan of the evening. Rena smiled wickedly when he broke off to sound it. She busied at his neck, one hand caressing the nape as she painted a bruise over his pulse. Her other hand smoothed over his torso before she tugged at his belt.

“Damn tease,” he growled, as she worked the soft flesh between teeth, lips and tongue.

A laugh bubbled in her throat as she kept nipping at him. The skin sparked and warmed in her mouth as the mark was shaded deeper. She worked the belt open with one hand and slipped into his jeans. The heavy sigh that came when she wrapped her fingers around him made her smirk and break off, tongue laving over the lustful damage.

“It’s only fair… and you like it,” she whispered.

Gladio’s eyes drifted shut at the hand working his cock and the sinful whispers that smoothed along his jaw. The first hot droplet of precum left him. He braced himself with a forearm on the wall over her head.

“But don’t forget it’s my apartment.”

Rena sprinted away and left him to growl and damn her. The warm laugh that returned from her new hiding spot was enough to put a smile on his face. The chase was half the fun, though she rarely dragged it out over an entire day. A small hunt, or a game of hide and seek, made playing all the more worth reward.

Gladio walked through the apartment and stripped as he went. His jeans didn’t leave the kitchen. Neither sock made it out of the living room. He faced the hallway. Bedroom door was open. So was the bathroom. She was keeping him guessing, it seemed. His boxers landed softly in the hall, and thus the game continued.

He prowled towards the doors, shoulders rolling and careful to be perfectly silent as he passed the bathroom. If she was in there and heard him, she’d race out and have the rest of the apartment to hide in. He peeked in as he came to the first door. Bathroom was clear. A winning smirk played on Gladio’s features. He pushed gently at the bedroom door, inching it open. It creaked.

His shoulders met the wall with a thud as she pinned him, hands flat against the wall beside his neck and ribs.

“Boo.”

He shook his head. “Sneaky.”

Hands tangled in each other’s hair, they crashed into another kiss. Gladio pushed his leg between hers. The gentle grinding against his thigh made him grin between kisses.

“Want me that much?” he teased. “Bet you’ve been thinkin’ about this all d- _ohh hell...”_

A soft, warm hand milking the next drop of precum from his cock put a stopper on his thoughts. She was desperate for friction, for more, but the game was fun. There was almost nothing better than being able to derail his train of thought.  The sounds he could make were lecherous. Going from soft gravel to almost beastly growls made the creature in her gut coil and claw.

“Somebody wanna play?” she asked breathlessly, biting his lip gently as she teased both of them. The large hand buried in her hair held her for another claiming kiss, while the other took a healthy handful of ass and squeezed.

“You know it,” Gladio almost dared.

“Good.”

She darted away again.

“Oh for- _Rena!_ ” he groaned, eyes closed in frustration as he grinned at the ceiling. She was just the right blend of infuriating and irresistible.

He shoved the bedroom door open and stepped in. The room was clear. She wasn’t on the bed, wouldn’t have had time to duck underneath and unless she’d hidden in a drawer, Gladio doubted her presence.

Rena bit her lip as she hid between the open door and the wall. His heavy sigh made her grin. Above the pooled blood in her belly, the fizz of the game was keeping her keen-eyed and cautious. Jumping out to pounce him again wouldn’t work as well as the first time. For now, she simply enjoyed the view and kept her underwear on. She had spares anyway.

Each muscular plane of his back blended seamlessly into the next. It was almost a shame the tattoo hid some of them. The ink itself only added to appeal. It was a more concise version of what he was; a work of art. Her eyes trailed from the back of his neck and the hand resting there as he sighed, over broad shoulders, to his waist and the breadth of his hips, and the toned ass that flexed when he shifted his weight. It was almost better than the view from the front.

She pushed the door gently until it was half-closed and reached the angle that made the hinges creak. His head whipped round. Sharp eyes creased with a sinful grin.

“Hey,” she greeted casually. Gladio shook his head and stepped towards her.

“Hi.”

Both hummed as he backed her up against the wall and they became lost in their nowhere. Hands buried in his hair as he held her hips, Rena let his tongue play and returned her own darting licks to the seam of his lips. His hands shifted to her waist and gripped tight.

She gasped sharply when he picked her up. Gladio chuckled into her neck as her legs wrapped around his waist.

“S’alright, I got ya.”

“Yeah? Put me the fuck down anyway,” Rena laughed nervously, completely tense in his arms. Gladio leant back and nudged against her nose.

“Oh, I will.”

The tone of disbelief came as she relaxed slightly. “No…”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“No…” It came as more of a whine this time, even as she smiled and blushed in his hold.

Gladio stepped free of the wall as she clung to him, legs wound around his waist and arms about his shoulders. He distracted her with kisses and made his way to the bed. The sheets met her back gently, but Gladio shrank away. Down.

He met her keen grin with a wink and tugged her to the edge. A hungry kiss disguised the rip of one side of her underwear. The threads of the other side cracked and snapped before he tossed the ruined garment away and took to his knees. His arms were warm and solid, unrelenting, as they hooked around her thighs and held her open. Rena propped herself up on her elbows and watched as he bit his lip and took in the sight of her, each breath cooled and revealed just how wet a day of teasing him had gotten her.

Gladio’s tongue met her first, warm and strong despite its softness. He dove in like a man starved as his eyes drifted shut and moaned straight into her. The tensing of her thighs made him smile against her. Each lap and lave was searching for a loose thread to unravel her with, and the scratch of stubble against her caught her just enough to find it.

Her hands were restless. She buried one in his hair and tugged just the way he liked it. The low groan that rumbled from him sent ripples through the blood in her gut as it pooled and heated. Each soft curse and mewl was only coaxed him. Her other hand roamed, briefly binding with his at her thigh before coursing up to squeeze and pinch at her own breasts.

“F-fuck, Gladio…”

Dark lashes parted. The hunger and drunk lust in amber eyes made her grind against his mouth with a louder moan.

The wrapping of lips around her clit, and the sucking that pulled it to his mouth for a skilful tongue to flick at, was it. He knew it. She couldn’t stop moving. Each and every roll of her hips begged for more. Rena’s gut tightened as she gritted her teeth and whined. The longer he spent suckling on that sensitive bundle of nerves, the higher and hoarser her voice rose and he loved to test her.

It was so close. She ran for it, chased it down and fought to have it in the fear he’d take her to the edge and leave her teetering. Her hand fisted in his hair and kept him fixed. Gladio didn’t stop, he didn’t abate at all. He gave her everything that busy mouth could give, from grazing teeth to nipping lips and a downright sinful tongue.

Her other hand clawed at the sheets as keens grew louder. Her release was right there, she could feel it with every pass of his tongue over her rosebud. He slowed.

“Nngghh fuck! Gladio, don’t stop! Please!” she begged.

The deep chuckle made her eyes drift shut. His fingertips were digging into her thighs. The hot mouth was fixed on an equally juicy target. Her curses became as stuttered as her hips as she closed in on it. A final, thunderous growl from him rumbled through her and threw her over the slick edge.

He kept playing, even as she gasped sharply enough to cut the room, tensed, held her breath and finally let it out on a loud, broken moan. Grinning, Gladio slowed his efforts to single licks over the length of her that made her shudder. She was still dizzy when he withdrew.

Gladio stood and fisted his cock, soaked lip trapped between his teeth, as he let his eyes roam over her in the post-orgasm glow. Legs spread, sex soaked, hair messy and cheeks flushed, she was a sight as she clutched at the sheets. Even drunk on lust, she held her edge. The keen glint from dark eyes offered challenge and defiance. Stubbornness. She was the sweet epitome of all three, and he would not soon forget it.

“Gods _damn_ ,” he growled, allowing himself the moment to simply please himself with her as a focus.

Rena’s hand slipped between her legs. She grinned when his wanton gaze widened in rapture at the smooth circling of her own touches around her clit, teasing until her hips followed and she whined for it. The delve of two fingers between her folds made him grunt and tug harder. Eyes in their devilish green dropped to his cock and the weep of precum, before they rose to his eyes again, her mouth drifting open and brows knitted by the hand of pleasure that knew her best.

“You can fuckin’ say that again,” she said hoarsely as she smiled, eyes in a continuous tide between his and the glistening head of his cock as he squeezed drop after drop of precum from it. On one of her flicks back up to his face, his eyebrow rose in cheeky suggestion.

“I’m tired, goodnight!” she jested, turning onto her front and settling in as if to sleep.

Gladio snorted and shook his head. The bed dipped either side of her thighs. Rena smiled into the mattress, only to gasp when his fingertips danced at either side of her hips, the only place she was ticklish. The ensuing tussle centred her on the bed as Gladio laughed richly.

“Oh, no you don’t. Get that ass up,” he coaxed.

She stayed still and peeked at him over her shoulder. Warm hands slipped under her, right at the juncture between hip and thigh, and lifted her up. Rena propped her forearms on the bed and felt her cheeks heat as she laughed. His knees pushed hers apart before a swift slap landed hot and stinging on her ass. The lips by her ear let him rumble.

“I said _up._ ”

When the head of his cock pressed against her, she arched her back and bit her lip. Each thick inch pushed into her dragged at her walls and stretched them. He was testing her limits. Breathless, she clawed at the sheets. The burn of being full made her swear he was bigger from this angle.

He drew out slowly enough to pull a whine from her, before driving back in slowly. The slick mess of his first efforts eased things, but she was still trying to catch her breath. Rough hands were fixed at her hips as he eased into her.

“Told ya I’d… _fuck…_ get you back,” he said, words stuttered by the rhythm he’d picked.

“You n-never said it’d- _fuck,_ be f-from the back, oh _gods!”_

The mess of her had him fraying to a growl already. “You like it? Huh?”

“Mhm! _Fuck,_ Gladio- yes!”

He teased his lips over her shoulders, from one side of her neck to the other before biting on her jaw. The harsh contrast of lips versus teeth had her hissing, only to earn a beastly question from him, tender in the petals of its roughness.

“What d’you want?”

Rena didn’t hesitate.

“ _More.”_

Rena was arched underneath him, sex quivering around his cock. She turned over her shoulder and met him her edge, every keenness and delicious marvel at the new sensations. Somehow this felt better and curiosity posed new questions.

He pushed back in, one hand fixed on her hips as the other planted in the mattress. The final few inches stuttered against still tight rings of muscle before he bumped her cervix. Both heads fell back, brows knitted and mouths open to let the symphony sing.

Her hands fisted in the sheets as she braced herself against each achingly slow, teasing thrust as they became faster. Harsh. _Devilish._ He used every inch he had. He drew out with a hiss before making his return and drawing whines from her throat. A craving moan caught when hips came flush and rolled against each other.

Gladio was everywhere. The solid warmth of him covered her, half-cage, half-temple. Scents were a dizzied blend of his, hers and sex. Rough hands couldn’t decide where to fix themselves; hips, waist, mattress. One coursed up and held her throat, neck angled for his teeth as he drove into her as the other fixed on the headboard and granted him leverage.

Twisted and pinned beneath him, she was a mess. Lips were either bitten or parted in a wanton moan. He was setting her on fire. Gladio loosened his bite and dragged open-mouthed kisses over her back through deep groans that shook him, let alone her.

Instinct tugged and pulled his hips to slam against hers. Rena’s high squeal made him grin and chase her with faster thrusts, hands on her hips to tug her back. Another spilled cry of delight let Gladio laugh darkly and linger with his mouth by her ear, words huffed as he kept his pace.

“The _hell_ got into you?”

“H-hormones- _fuck Gladio,_ go harder! Mnh- gods!”

His pace picked up without question, burning from waist to knee as he curled to take her. Whenever she clenched around him, he felt his cock throb in return and fight her. The lascivious sound of skin slapping against skin, the softer parts of harder bodies bound in primal need, set a tempo for melodious cries and growls. Each and every touch drove them further from their minds. It was wrapping around them in the blood red silks of rut.

Close over her, the heat of his breath smoothed past her neck with every huffed breath and pant coming between deep groans that only made the creature in her belly purr and coil around him in lecherous delight.

“G-Gladio, oh my _fucking_ gods, how the- _fuck_ , have we never done this before?!”

He laughed and kept up his rhythm, hips driving deep into her. A sinful mouth lingered by her ear as she was jolted by his thrusts, skin heating under his until close air burned.

“You like it?” he growled. Rena tightened at the gravel of his voice as it burned until it was white-hot. A whimpered affirmative turned his grin predatory. He took a handful of her hair and pulled her head back, achingly slow until she was taut in one continuous curve beneath him. “Feel good when I fuck you from behind?”

The hand holding her throat tilted her head up as his tongue teased in a line from shoulder to jaw. Amber eyes caught sight of a delirious smile and only burned brighter for it. She backed onto every roll of his hips. The fist clutching the sheets was interrupted by his fingers winding between hers. Wet slaps and the harder thuds driving them made her blush under the bloodier roses of sex.

“You should hear yourself... Whining like a bitch in heat,” he teased in a voice that was nothing but sin. The loud keen came as she fluttered around him, arched to take all of him. His stubble scratched at her neck as he pounded into her. “Oh, _good girl,_ that’s right… C’mon, back up on me, you know I like that shit… Come be my little bitch-.”

“Gladio! Gods-fuck _please_ make me come! I-I wanna come, please! I need it- _oh my gods, yes, fuck yes!”_

Gladio hooked his arm around her waist and held her close as his hips snapped, each sharp movement was a slashing knife to the tied ropes in his gut. Ecstasy wound into their veins, lined them with quicksilver as it pulsed through them. It bled into every fibre. Suffocated them in blissful burning. A string of curses, each higher and hoarser than the last left her as the sensation narrowed to a thin point and pierced.

“Fuck- _Gladio!_ ”

The smooth moan bloomed in the room, stuttered by his desperate drive to join her in nirvana. His cock throbbed and twitched before he finally forced as deep as he could go and spilled with a roar of her name muffled through a bite to her neck, as though he could brand her with her own.

Both panting, coated in sweat and still moving against each other absently, Gladio’s forehead pressed to her nape.

“Sweet fuckin’ Shiva…” he said breathlessly. He shook his head and let one hand wander while the other stayed twined with hers. The squeeze of her walls made him hiss a breath.

She was playing with him, working his own release around him. Rena was completely blissed by the slick velveteen. Lips quivered and hung open. Gladio leant to the side and kissed her neck. He grinned and let his hand roam up before he wiped the single droplet of drool threatening to crest her lip.

“Messy girl,” he smirked as earthen eyes wandered over the marks and signs of coupling.

“I don’t know about you,” she swallowed. Rena turned over her shoulder and met his gaze with a darker version that only made the glint in her eyes brighter; sharper. “But I could go another round.”

The smooth laugh was honeyed sin. He nodded slowly as her tongue subtly pressed to the sharp point of her canine, as wildness came out of her, clawing and hungry. Always hungry. It dismissed whatever softening had eased into his cock and made him throb in a bloody ache instead.

His hand smoothed up her thigh and slow at the juncture between leg and ass before palming over her.

“One thing though?”

“Uh-huh?” he asked, taking handfuls of softer flesh even as she tensed and relaxed underneath him, trying the rags of the old orgasm together with new blood swirling in her gut. She fell for the ease of it, only for him to slap her out of it with a harsh hand against her ass.

Jolted, breathless and grinning, she smoothed back to keep his hand on her as he stroked the sting away.

“Harder.”

Something roughened his throat and broke the last of his bindings. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her neck and planted his knees in the mattress.

“You sure?”

“Gladio...” she almost warned.

Rena turned over her shoulder and met him in a kiss that allowed her a taste of herself, still hot and slick on his mouth. Mischief played in her mind. She reached down to where they were joined. Just as the kiss ended, she smeared some of his own release across his bottom lip. Gladio licked it off and kissed her with a feral growl. In a pause, she made both her demand, and made him grin.

“Fuck me up.”

* * *

“Whisk?”

“Second cupboard on your right, third drawer, left-hand side.”

Rena followed the directions and pulled the steel handle of the sleek black walnut drawer. An array of well-organised tools met her in lustrous stainless steel, amongst which was a bundle of various items that could all fall under the label of ‘whisk’.

“Iggy, how many ff- _damned_ whisks do you-?”

“Roux.”

She shook her head and plucked out the flattest of the bunch before nudging the drawer shut with her knee and returning to the stove. Ignis stepped close to remove his precious and prized behemoth fillet from the pan and take it to rest. Rena set about deglazing the pan as the scents of wood-smoked meat and wine filled the air.

Prompto popped his head into the kitchen, took a deep draw of the fragrant steam and let out a satisfied smile before snapping back to his perky self.

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’ _s-_ nah, that doesn’t work,” he shook his head before flicking his fringe from his eyes.

“Another drink, Prompto?” Ignis asked, eyebrow raised.

He gave his hands a quick rinse and wiped them dry on the black, flour-dusted apron about his waist. The champagne silk shirt would’ve looked pretentious on anyone else, but Ignis was one to carry things off well, especially when the top buttons were loosened in the heat of the kitchen to display a delicate clavicle and the small skull necklace. Paired with black trousers and, always, immaculately polished shoes, he wore formality so often it seemed casual on him.

Prompto, on the other hand, had seemed out of sorts with his clothing initially. Observing of the occasion, he’d agonised over his choice of a navy shirt, untucked and doing a marvellous job of bringing out his eyes, and black skinny jeans with his cleanest sneakers.

His cheeks were pink under faded freckles. He laughed bashfully at Ignis’ question and slowly held out his glass again. The short crystal cylinder held the dregs, ice, lime rind and rosemary sprig of his first drink. Ignis met Rena’s eyes before both rolled them and he accepted the empty glass.

“What’s in it anyway?” Prompto asked as he followed into the kitchen. Ignis opened a small drinks cabinet and worked in a flurry.

“Schnapps.” He held up a half-full bottle of clear liquid. “Mountain cranberry syrup.” Ignis poured a measure of thick, dark red over the ice. “Tonic and sparkling water.” He finished by simultaneously topping up the glass with the two remaining liquids. After a quick stir and a fresh sprig, he handed the replenished glass to Prompto.

The blond took a fizzing mouthful of the tart drink and hollowed his cheeks. After the fire of it slipped down his throat like ice, he let out a satisfied breath.

“All I know is _it. Is. Good_ ,” he grinned. “Gonna see if Noct wants anything. You two okay in here?”

“Never better,” he assured.

“We’ve got it, go mess about,” said Rena as she turned back to the stove.

He returned to his canapes as they lay, partially constructed, on serving platters. Steam still rose from the behemoth fillet in lazy silken swathes, but it had rested long enough. Ignis began to carve. Once the slivers of dark meat were laid in ribbons on top of their rye toast bases, Ignis worked with mechanic precision to give each a small peak of horseradish cream. Afterwards, he plucked a small black ball from the cluster nested in splayed linen.

“Thank you for bringing them back, by the way. I honestly didn’t think you’d be able to get into the ground at this time of year,” he remarked.

“Ah, just set a little fire for a couple hours and you’re good. Lucky just the same though, late season ones aren’t as common.”

“I’ve heard they have a richer taste. _Meaty_.”

Rena snorted at his enunciated observation as Ignis drew the truffle to his nose and took a deep draw of its scent. It lay somewhere between earth and the perfume of sex. He began to grate it over his canapes.

“Thickening up decently?”

“Gods, Iggy, you could just say I’m gaining weight, don’t need to dance around it,” she teased. He looked mortified for a second before simultaneously frowning and smirking at her quick wit. Rena turned back to the pan. “Needs another minute or so.”

“Excellent. Did you add the-?”

“ _Yes,_ Ignis.”

“…Seems I’m lucky to have found myself a sous chef as capable as yourself,” he smiled and took a sip of his glass of white wine. He began to pluck and arrange curling pea shoots over the canapes. “And for what it’s worth, your figure is flourishing.”

“Oof, you’re feeling nice.”

He gave a nonchalant grunt while sipping his wine and waved a dismissive hand. Ignis swallowed crisply and shook his head. “Nonsense. What’s a few compliments between friends, hmm?”

“ _Ho-ly_ shit, half a bottle and you’re a diehard flirt.”

Ignis leant against the counter at her side, held up his glass for a toast which she obliged, and smiled with wine-pinked cheeks. “Wholly. Truly. _Absolutely.”_

“Careful, he’ll have your head.”

“You’d have it first.”

Rena snorted as she checked how well the sauce coated a spoon. “Yeah, you’re right.”

The pair cooked in quiet, industrious company as a hundred little jobs were completed, one by one. Once the sauce had reached a consistency they could agree upon, it was drizzled over the canapes in delicate swirls. Champagne was iced. Other nibbles joined the exquisite finger foods; smoked salmon blinis, steam buns filled with vegetables and fresh chili, cheese and crackers. Ignis ducked into the oven and retrieved his vol-au-vents, while Rena stood to the side and nursed a caramel on the stove.

“Eyy!”

“Hey, Blondie! How you doin’?”

“Purdy good! How’re you? And hey! Look what you brought!”

“He’s really enjoying that schnapps,” Rena cocked her head as Ignis picked hot canapes and placed them on a plate. “You might want to hide it.”

“I might just,” he chuckled. Another sip of white wine made her notice the smooth pink glow in his cheeks as jade eyes held a thorned focus on his little army of pastries. She smiled and went back to her caramel as it darkened.

“How far gone do you want this?” she asked.

“Far from burnt, it still needs the salt,” he replied as he placed a small bag, no bigger than an apple, on the worktop. “Cavaughan sea salt.”

“Rare.”

“Very. Most on the market are cheap imitations, usually a blend of Leidens and, occasionally, other unsavoury substances. _This_ was from a friend.”

“Just point me in the direction of that drug dealer of yours, I’ll be happy to keep him in business,” she joked. Ignis’ quiet laugh, the music and the sounds of busy cooking, shielded the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.

“Hey Noct! How ya doin’?”

“Ah, pretty good. How’s school?”

“Oh, y’know! Same old, same old. Had a couple tests get high A’s so I’m pretty happy.”

“You’re always happy.”

“Try to be! We brought dessert, too. Hope ya like chocolate! Gladdy helped-.”

“You mean he licked the bowl?”

“No! He… did that too, but he helped! Had to persuade him to do it first. Threatened his bookshelf.”

“You’re a damn pyromaniac. How did you even -?”

“Not important! What _is_ important, is these little mousses needing to keep cool and stay in the refrigerator. Hope you’ve got room in there, Ignis! There’s a lot of ‘em.”

“Of course,” he called, fixed on arranging his serving platters and adding the final touches. Dill to the salmon, black and tan sesame seeds on the dumplings, and other assorted garnishes to their respective recipients.

“Good! We’ve got a few coffee ones, too. The others are raspberry, vanilla, orange and- and…”

The bright, musical voice trailed off as large russet eyes fixed on the stranger.

She was steady and calm in one of her elements, yet another environment of mild stress, as she sprinkled salt into a steaming pan and swirled the contents. Her dark hair was gathered and held in a loose bun, stray curls framing her face in earthy brown. The brunette was tall, even in leather flats, and strong, comfortably styled in dark jeans and a black bardot top that revealed rare but dark freckles on her shoulders. The faint wilted petals of a rose bruise lingered on her neck. She finished pouring the sauce into a small porcelain jug and turned to walk towards the sink. Soft features gave nothing away as deep green eyes fixed on her.

Wide-eyed and as still as a fawn, Iris blinked under the powerful focus of a new pair of eyes. Older than her own, but ageless all the same, they told her nothing. She was wearing a black teacup dress, matching crochet flats and her usual choker. Still, there was a brightness to her. A fizzing vivacity and a bubbly temperament that had temporarily popped and now slowly dripped like mixture from the wand.

Gladiolus appeared alongside his sister, holding a tray in his hands. The deep wine red of his shirt, rolled to the elbow and tucked into his jeans, only worked to brazen his fiery colouring. The bold black of the tattoo on his forearms and dark dusking of stubble and beard on his jaw lingered like ink and soot. Amber eyes creased when they met green, and then flicked between the two of them; the most important women in his life.

“Iris,” he said, gently tapping his sister with his elbow as she held a tray of her own. “This is Rena. Rena, this is my sister, Iris.”

Both stayed silent and looked at each other for another moment. Surprisingly, it was a low voice that pushed out and sent its ripples first.

“Hey, you alright?” asked Rena. The younger’s open mouth burst into action.

“Hi! Nice to finally meet you! Gladdy keeps going on and on-.”

“Do not.”

“Do too! Anyway, yeah! He never shuts up, to be honest, and I can see why! D’you kick his ass?”

Rena allowed herself a shy smile and closed her eyes before answering.

“I, uh, yeah. From what I heard, you kicked it first, though,” she nodded. Iris positively beamed. “I like your hair.”

“I like yours!”

“Oh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Gladio smiled. As he walked away from leaving the mousses in the fridge, he pinched the single pin holding Rena’s hair up and pulled it out in one smooth movement.

“Hey, c’mon. I need that,” she said, sweeping her hair back from her face.

Iris’ already open mouth had widened as her eyes lit up. The mess of unruly curls had sprung forth from their style with a mind of their own. Gladio took the tray from his sister and held the pin out of Rena’s reach as he passed to the fridge again. Upon being offered a drink by Ignis, he refused alcohol but took a small glass of sparkling water and tonic, iced, with muddled mint leaves.

“Y-your hair…”

“Yep. She wakes up like that too. _Mop.”_

_“Gladdy!”_ Iris frowned under her bangs and put her fists on her hips. “You can’t say that!”

“Can. First-hand witness.”

“Oh yeah? So just like the time you woke up with a book stuck to your face ‘cause you’d drooled all over it-.”

“I don’t drool in my sleep.”

“Yes you do! You drooled all over this sappy romance _thing_ and ended up with the ink on your face for two days afterwards, and whenever anyone asked, you said it was a new tattoo stencil you were trying out.”

“Wasn’t two days,” he deadpanned.

Iris raised her eyebrows before feigning realisation. “Oh yeah. You’re right. It was a week!”

“Was not!”

“Ignis! Back me up!” she demanded, without taking her eyes off her brother.

“It was at least four days, if memory serves.”

“Not helping!” Gladio frowned at the newly victorious smile on her face.

“HA!” Iris grinned. At her brother’s clenched jaw but the fun glint in his eyes, she continued to press. “Ya getting’ embarrassed yet? Or should I tell her about the time you crapped your pants?”

The glint faded promptly.

“You shit yourself?” Rena asked, her own edge beginning to spell mischief. Standing at her side but fixed on his sister, he turned to her.

“No,” he said simply, with no real tone. When he spoke again, it was with more warning and pointed at Iris. “ _No.”_

“He did.”

“I was sick.”

“No you weren’t,” Iris had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing at the rising blush on Gladio’s cheeks. It was rare and hard to cause, but if anyone could do it, it was her. She turned her focus to Rena and blurted through a broad smile. “He was eighteen. Crapped ‘em. Shoulda seen the look on his face, it was gold.”

Gladio’s eyes flashed at her. “I was _sick.”_

“And right _there_ is proof that was the only day of your life you weren’t _completely_ full of sh-!”

“Okay, time to go.”

He stepped forwards, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and steered Iris back to the living room. Ignis allowed himself a quiet chuckle before he doused it in a creamy Duscaean white. Rena snorted when Gladio returned to the framed archway of the kitchen with puffed cheeks and an exasperated eye roll.

“You should’ve known better than putting them in the same room. I’d say it went rather well, for a first introduction.

“Little _too_ well,” Gladio said with narrowed eyes before finishing his drink. He topped it up with the same clear sparkling blend and downed half before looking at them with a puzzled frown. “Where was I? Ah, yeah.”

Gladio took a step to the side and put his arm around the slip of her waist, before both turned to face each other. He spoke low and soft, voice as warm as his eyes.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” nodded Rena. “She’s…”

“Annoying? Little _too_ perky? A five-foot-nothin’ pain in the ass?”

“Very like you.”

“…Nah,” he shook his head. “She likes you though, that’s good.”

“I think she likes everyone.”

“Hell no. You shoulda seen her the first time she met Cor. Does _not_ like grumpy people.”

“Cor’s not grumpy, he’s just…” Rena weaved her head from side to side before settling on a conclusion. “It’s just his face.”

“Speaking of faces,” he smiled.

“Don’t.”

“Oh, I’m gonna.”

“I’ll end you.”

“Yeah? And I bet you will, but first…”

Leant against the worktop, Ignis had one heel crossed over the other while he sipped his wine and watched the couple draw close, smiles form and eyes soften. Gladio met her in a sweet kiss, no more than the closing of open lips against each other and a mutual hum before they parted. Ignis raised his glass in a silent toast.

“I’m loathe to interrupt, but could you help us serve, Gladio?”

One hand splayed on her back and the other holding his glass as he drank, Gladio’s eyes widened as he gulped quickly and nodded.

“Sure.”

Each took two serving platters and ferried them through to the living room to leave them on the coffee table. Prompto knelt on the floor by the television and busied himself with wiring in the console Noct had brought, while he put fresh batteries in the remotes they’d pooled. The youngest amongst them grinned and cleared the coffee table of drinks and phones for the plates to be set down. Iris’ eyes made the direct journey between her brother and Rena more than once, as if she were sewing them together, though her hands were far busier keeping Ochre and Seyna away from the steaming plethora of food.

Chairs were pulled from the dining room, seats taken, however cramped, and chatter kept lively as various delicacies were consumes, complimented and called dibs upon. The large clock on the television, counting down to the new year, was replaced by the bright colours of a game menu. After two consecutive trips to replenish everyone’s drinks and making a schnapps strong enough to finish Prompto for the evening, Rena found herself in the warmth of the kitchen with the bottle of wine she was working her way through. She poured herself another glass of red and took a sip as she looked out the window. City lights were strewn below them from Ignis’ high apartment, like stars on a pond as traffic bustled like fish around great stone and glass pillars.

She needed to breathe.

Silently thanking Ignis for living in a new building with relatively few, if any, creaky floorboards, she padded out through the dining room and let herself onto the small balcony. Dark rattan furniture was softened by cream cushions. _Two minutes,_ she told herself. The cold air wrapped around her like silk. Just as she began to steady, busy with gently swirling her wine, the glass doors to the patio opened.

“You okay?”

Gladio stepped out and closed the door quietly. The cushion dipped at her side as he set himself down on the sofa and slung his arm around her back, hand moulded to her waist.

“Yeah, just warm. Too warm.”

“Would that have anything to do with this?” he asked, leaning forwards to flick her glass. It sung in a high, clear note. She frowned softly at him.

“I’ve had two.”

“Bottles?” he jested, hand coming up to rub her cheek with the back of his finger.

Rena sighed before giving her answer. “Glasses.”

He raised his eyebrows and let them fall back down, only to take a deep breath of the city’s winter night and settle. He was warm and solid when she leant back and was held to his side. They watched the King’s wall in eternal tide over Insomnia, unaware it was about to be threatened, though harmlessly so, by the moment years shared fireworks.

“Got any resolutions?”

She thought for a moment before shaking her head.

“Pretty much the same as last year.”

Gladio gave a light kiss to her hair before watching the city and feeling it refreshed, new with the scents of honey and wine. “Which was?”

“Live,” she said simply. “Overdramatic as fuck, I know.”

“Hey, it worked,” he shrugged. “You’re still here.”

“Never thought I’d be _here_ though. Looking at that. Having a job. My own place. The dogs with me…  You.”

Gladio felt something tug at his chest, just lightly. A chance encounter had proved to have immeasurable consequences. One of which was held closer than ever. He pressed a kiss to her temple. Rena’s eyes fell shut at the sheer warmth of it. They opened again when she remembered something. Gladio’s had also done the same. Both spoke in impromptu unison.

“I got you something.”

“Ah, ladies first?” Gladio suggested as he gathered his brows.

“In that I’m giving you yours first, yeah.”

“Not what I meant.”

“It’s what I took so I’m going first,” she raised an eyebrow and smiled. Gladio closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.

“Okay.”

She held a small black box in her hand. Hinged. It sat nicely in her palm but seemed heavy. Gladio’s eyes widened.

“I thought… Since you’re around a lot and this seems to be going well…”

Rena opened the box.

“That it was time you had your own.”

Inside the box was a key. New and shiny, freshly cut. Exactly like hers. Gladio puffed his cheeks out and fell into a laugh. Rena snorted and shook her head.

“Really had you going there, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you did,” he shook his head with a grin. His brows gathered.

“So, Gladiolus Amicitia, will you remember to put the fuckin’ seat down after you piss?”

He gave a sniff of mock emotion and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I will…Where’d you get the box?”

“Oh, Cas and Fletch are engaged. Fletch got really excited when Cas said yes, and he kind of threw the box. Dogs found it when we were out on a run. Knew it was theirs ‘cause he couldn’t stop talking about how it was an-.”

“An Adamantem,” he said, just as she turned the box over to reveal the silver insignia on the underside.  The hint of a curious frown came over her face. Gladio locked eyes with her. “I… might’ve been there recently...”

She was unreadable purely because she was a flurry. Her reaction was changing so quickly, it was like driving through snow, so fast they became streaks. Rena stayed perfectly still as Gladio pulled a box from his pocket. Slightly larger than hers, the same sleek black velvet, it seemed the same size in his hand.

“Open it,” he coaxed gently as he passed the box to her. Her hands might’ve shaken. Gladio pressed a kiss to her cheek as she braced herself and tilted the lid back. Her whisper made him grin.

“Oh, fuck!”

Her tone was relieved.

It wasn’t a ring. Inside the box was a necklace. A single lustrous pearl was resting in a silver vine leaf, no bigger than his thumbnail. The chain that led from either side was fine silver, worked into continuous braids as though it were wheat in heavy morning frost. Once she’d gathered her nerve, she fixed on it and took each fine detail into focus.

“Gladio…”

“I want you to have it. Time you had your own, anyway.”

The tarnished steel of the dog tags was in its permanent place; running around her neck as a reminder of absence, of a role to be filled and a job to be done. They’d been passed to her the same way she’d taken up the gun, the knife, the hunts and everything else she’d made her own. Free from the heavy roof of home, she didn’t need to be the replacement anymore. It had slowly washed from her like oil from feathers.

“C’mon,” he whispered, propping her forwards as he took the necklace from the box. “Hold that hair up for a second.”

Rena shook her head and gathered the curls with practiced hands. The silver was only cold against her skin for a moment before it settled. As he worked with the clasp, Gladio spoke in a warm tone.

“Galahdian freshwater pearl. They’re supposed to mean harmony, wisdom and protection. The silver wasn’t as hard to get, but it wasn’t easy. It’s-.”

“Cleigne.”

The dark silver had a dewy shine to it, as opposed to the brighter metals of Leiden-Duscaean blends. He finished with the clasp and let the necklace rest around her neck. What little air was left in her lungs left her when warm lips pressed to the side of her neck. He whispered low and quiet.

“Look under the cushion.”

She let her hair down and pinched the soft velvet pillow before lifting it out. Underneath was a key. Shining and new, it made her smile.

“What are the fuckin’ chances?”

“Great minds think alike,” he grinned, pressing his forehead to her temple.

The first firework screamed up into the sky before popping into a burst of red. Both watched as the second crackled blue. The countdown began. Gladio caressed the back of her neck with one hand while smoothing the necklace to pale skin with the other. Deep green watched him with warmth, and not just from the wine. A third firework. Both eyes fluttered shut as noses touched gently and fingers intertwined as her free hand cupped his jaw. A fourth. Lips brushed. Gladio’s pulled into a smile.

“Happy new year.”

They met in a kiss and dove into nowhere as the fifth firework was followed by a hundred others to light the sky and signal change. The frigid air burned with gunpowder.

They didn’t hear it. They were nowhere but each other and themselves, lost in a kiss as the year became seven hundred and fifty-six.

Lips fell apart, but everything else stayed together. A smoother tone came warm and hoarse in the quiet, but he heard it.

“Happy new year.”


	17. Reliability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The new year brings a new assignment for Rena, one that pulls her away from the city and Gladio. Time apart lends to sweeter returns, and with Rena around less, Gladio's mind begins to scramble to keep her...

The stone was cold. So much so, it had lost scent for her. The dogs kept their noses to the ground and incessantly followed a trail as they clung to every whiff preserved by the cool morning. The walls were sandy and smooth as Rena shouldered through a narrow gap. Her burning lungs and pounding head were quietened by a snapped twig, brittle and sharp through the channel. Her ears pulled towards a light snort.

There it was. That focus. It had been as though her head was full of muddy water, constantly shifted by the city’s movements, a changing world and the constant ticking.

Out here, it was timeless. Muddy water was allowed to still until silt made sense and she could finally see, breathe, _know_ again.

The clear blue sky blushed peach behind her. The quicker steps of a winter day had begun to slow, but nowhere near as much as the long days of summer. Leide’s spring supplied a rosy warmth, that of a coral. That was the colour scheme. As though the warmer seas had been dried and colours maintained, the bright blue water and rocks of every shade glimmered with fish scales and other small marvels the dusty centre of this region hadn’t seen for millennia.

So this was it. Rena could breathe. Finally alone. The way it was meant to be, and always had been. In her element and with those she trusted. Sometimes living was still too comfortable. She needed to _survive._ She needed tested, tried, threatened, blood to run, lungs to burn and her heart to pound with some primal drum. _That_ was what she craved.

The habit had been hard to kick. She had to drop it to teach the boys. Rena couldn’t stop thinking when she was with them. There was always a question to be answered.

_What if someone gets hurt? Who’s most likely to get hurt? Why? Where? What was that? How do I explain it? What time is it? Are they alright? Did they get hurt? Should we turn back? Are they ready? Will they cry? Will their stomachs turn? Can they do this? Can you do this?_

Now, there were no questions. Only observations.

The scent of quiet death fell in silken swathes from the dried plants on the surface of the canyon. It was the smell of burning, freezing, breaking and trying again. The sand beneath her feet kept her steps silent. The dogs scratched at the wall ahead, claws raking roughly as they hewed stone smoothed by centuries. It was narrow, barely wide enough for one of them, and only just for Rena if she walked sideways and moulded herself to the tight space. They waited for approval.

The quick flick of her hand was enough. Seyna, nose to the ground and hackles smooth, proceeded with due caution. Reapertails were common in the channels, and had more than enough venom to take out a dog. Ochre followed close behind, head above his sister’s haunches and sniffing the air. Rena slipped the rifle from her shoulder and edged into the gap.

 _Regional correspondence_ he’d said. _Blend in and find out what you can. Report back._ Undercover was the unsaid word. The Marshal had done a masterful thing, as he always did; kept things vague whilst making himself perfectly clear. As far as _they_ knew, she was being phased out of the Guard and put amongst the Hunters.

One word had clung in her mind, dark and coiling itself like a snake prepared to strike.

_Daemons._

He hadn’t told her much. He’d barely told her anything. The mentions of _daemons, Niflheim, war_ and _changes_ had been enough to make Rena understand.

Something was happening, on these shores or abroad. There had been some shift in equilibrium, and Lucis didn’t know how to react yet. Entropy had always been guaranteed, she knew that, systems tended towards maximum chaos and minimum energy. It was simple chemistry. High school stuff. The world would seem at rest just before it ended, and the war had been lazy for decades now.

If she heard any mention of anything to do with them, she was to report back immediately with what she knew, where and when she’d heard it, preferably from who. The earpiece was still foreign and hard in her ear. Her hair hid it well. She felt like a tagged dog. Set loose to hunt and retrieve. It recorded everything. If things went south, there was a button that would have Glaives deployed to her. She’d been told to expect three. Guards were better suited to open field combat or defence; they were the shield of the city and crown. Glaives were the sword. The hunters. The motley crew from every far reach that made them a dangerous pack to walk amongst, especially when commanded by a hand she knew. One that had held her throat too harshly and her back too softly.

Rena clenched and continued to sidle through the gap. She was halfway and moulded to the contours of the rock as they scratched at the brown leather of her belts. Dressed in thick, dark training leggings that ended at her calves and a beige tank to blend in, she was coated in three days of sweat, dust and the liquored breaths of others. She’d stayed awake, only allowed to doze in quiet moments alone. If she missed something, there’d be consequences.

Thus far, she’d relied on silence to do the work for her. People were more inclined to fill a cup if it was empty. More likely to drink if left alone. And drinking loosened tongues. The Hunters had made no secret of what they’d heard or seen. Leiden hunters, anyway. There was still Duscae and Cleigne to investigate. For the latter, she’d have to hope she’d changed enough to be unrecognisable. Otherwise it was unlikely they’d allow her amongst their ranks, let alone to hunt with them. They remembered faces, and Rena’s was one they’d turned away.

Too young. Too independent. Refused to work alongside others. Hunters had rules. No less than three in a group. One got hurt, the other helped, and the last went to find more help or defend them. She already came from a family that had been sent dog tags for one of their children and they weren’t keen to send more.

Meldacio had nothing if not sentiment; the exact trait that separated hunters from their quarry.

She filled her lungs once she was free of the gap. The dogs stayed low and to the edges of the channel as they continued through. There were voices ahead. Rough. Deep. Drawling.

“Look, all I’m sayin’ is, I think it’s a bad idea.”

A smokier tone came through. “Vick, you say ev’ry idea’s a bad idea. Ain’t my fault you’re lily-livered.”

“I ain’t! Just… cautious, is all. Don’t see _why_ we need to be out here freezing our godsdamned balls off.”

“Least we’ll finally settle who had the bigger sac.”

“Thomas!”

“You two are loud as fuck.”

Both jolted at the sudden appearance of the girl and her dogs. She was just a temporary substitute. The third and usual member of their group was holed up back at the outpost, recovering from the recent behemoth it had taken twenty to bring down. Instead, they’d been given… _this._ Messy, quiet, and emotionless, she’d slowly come out of her shell with them, to reveal her colours.

She may have shown her colours, but Rena was hiding her claws. For now.

“Here’s a question for ya, missy,” Vick began.

He was smaller than Thomas by three inches or so. Decently muscled, he had black hair and a thick, short beard that he scratched whenever he stopped moving. There was a machete at his side and a pistol in his hand. Loaded. Cocked. He wore black cargo pants and a dark green t-shirt with all manner of stains on it. The dog tags around his neck were the cleanest thing on him and shone bright against skin turned river-clay red by decades of Leiden sun and creased with the marks of a much older man. Blue eyes as clear as the desert sky watched her with careful curiosity.

Thomas was taller, thin as young tree and wiry. He was clean shaven, though three days had brought back reddish stubble. Dark brown eyes, almost black, moved slow. He was in no real rush about anything. Black cargo pants again, though faded to grey and baggy around his long legs, and a t-shirt that was once white under a tan shearling jacket were his garb. Dog tags. His hair fell to his chin in chestnut waves that reeked of tobacco but had been pulled into a small bun at the back of his head. His crossbow rested on his shoulder.

“How big’s that boyfriend of yours?” Vick asked.

Rena looked between both of them tiredly and cocked her head before focusing on Thomas. “Bigger than you. Probably about six foot six and broad.”

“No, we meant-.”

“Don’t bring me into this, Vick, this was your godsdamned question.”

“Well, _I_ meant in the uh, _southern…_ department?” he asked thickly. Vick swallowed part of the way through and watched her face shift.

She pinched her brows together as watery blue eyes fixed on her. Rena shook her head.

“I’m not answering that.”

“And why’s that now?” Thomas prodded. A smirk pulled at the corner of his tanned face as he wiggled the pick between his teeth. She shrugged.

“’Cause I don’t know.”

“You…” Vick said carefully, his broad, sparse brows pulled into a frown. “You ain’t gettin’ it?”

“Oh, she’s gettin’ it alright. Ain’t nobody got a glow like that unless they’re gettin’ their needs met. _All of ‘em._ By the looks a’things, that boy has _definitely_ passed through the gates a’heaven. I’d bet my left nut.”

“You don’t _have_ a left nut,” Vick pointed out. Thomas cocked his jaw and bounced his eyebrows up at Rena.

“So… How big is he?”

“Big enough,” she nodded, before turning to follow the dogs. Vick spoke up from behind.

“So…?”

“Like a baby’s arm holding an apple.”

The channel closed up again as they hooted and whistled behind her. Rena and the dogs went first. Showing distrust was more dangerous than trusting, not that she did anyway. They slipped into the gap behind her as they all shuffled through. The stone grazed her shoulders and blended blood with sweat.

When they emerged into the calm meadow beyond, the spindly and weak grasses were a rarity. They may have coated the basin and been soaked by enough dew to remain lush, but they were nothing much. Still, it had been enough to attract their quarry.

Mesmenir.

Amongst the snorts and quiet whinnies of the small herd they’d been tracking for days now, one was their quarry. The old stallion. Too many years at the top of his game had begun to concern the hunters. A new stud was needed to keep stock healthy, and mesmenir were needed to feed anything that could otherwise feed on tourists, when the time came. However, for fresh blood to come through, the old was to be spilled.

The dogs stuck close to her; Seyna in front and Ochre behind; one to guide, one to guard. Vick and Thomas split left, while Rena went right. The would loop and pinch together, simultaneously cutting him off from the rest and take their shots. If they all landed, it was theoretically enough to bring him down.

He was bigger than the brief said, and usually hunters exaggerated. The estimation was a couple of tonnes of muscle and a bad temper that had made him king. He was formidable. The long horn arching from his head was broken two thirds of the way along and sharply splintered. The black of the inner tissue was visible. It jerked violently as he ripped grass from its roots.

Rena slipped the rifle from her shoulder and stayed low amongst the thin cover. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough if they wanted this to be clean and quick. Her limbs were heavy. Tired. Three days of trekking across Leide on five hours of sleep were beginning to show.

But this, _this…_ This woke her like nothing else. This was the hiss of a log before it popped and sparked. This was what she knew. This was more than life. It was life _and_ death. It was survival.

She pulled back the bolt and slipped a bullet in. Deep green eyes, their shade unmatched by the environment, watched for any movement in the herd. The side of one pitched as it moved huge lungs to produce a sound. She used the rumbled snort to hide the closing of the bolt. The wooden stock of the rifle was at home against her shoulder. She had him, pinned at the end of black metal sights. Her thumb ran along the side of the gun to flip the safety. When it wasn’t where she expected, Rena kept her eyes on the mesmenir and felt for it. She’d already switched it off.

_Well, fuck…_

She kept her eyes on the stallion. Rena timed each breath to his thundering lungs. The dogs lay down at her sides and kept their heads on the ground. He took a step. She felt the impact under her feet. Rena locked on the ghostly white eye and the slight dip behind it where the skull thinned.

She held her breath and fired.

The sound of gunshots ricocheted against the walls of the clearing as they rose up like deep rusty waves. They’d hidden the third, quieter sound. The stallion stumble and fell to the ground.

Gently grabbing each dog by the scruff of the neck, she pulled them underneath her and stayed crouched over them as the rest of the herd reared, scattered and galloped. The ground shook hard enough for tiny stones between her fingers to jump. They gathered sense and themselves, swept together and ran from the scent of blood, out of the basin.

After a moment, Rena stood and sent the dogs to sweep. Vick and Thomas sauntered over to the carcass. She’d only just joined them when Vick prodded it with his boot.

For being a clean kill, it was messy. She and Vick had shot for the head. The upper portion of the skull had been blown out on both sides as blood stained into the white of his coat and sank into the ground. A crossbow bolt was stabbed proudly into the higher portion of the neck, over what would’ve been the pulse.

“Yep, he’s dead.”

“No shit,” Thomas mumbled, mouth busy as he lit a cigarette. He took a long draw, half of the pale stick turning to ash, before he passed it to Vick. Both held lungfuls of smoke before letting it billow out and become the only small cloud in a limitless sky. The last stub of the cigarette was offered to Rena.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” she said, shaking her head in respectful refusal.

The dogs sniffed at the fresh carcass noses busy as drool began to run from their jaws. They pawed and whined at the stallion, continually racing back to Rena to lick at her hands in yipped pleas.

“You guys gonna eat that?”

“Hell no.”

“Mesmer’s are tough as the shit on my boots,” Thomas scoffed a laugh. “When they’re as old as that one, _oof,_ might lose a tooth. S’all yours.”

“Thanks,” she said. The snap of her fingers was all the approval the dogs needed.

Vick raised an eyebrow, and almost looked reluctant to see her go as his inky black eyes twinkled. “You gon’ head back to the city now?”

“Back to city boy’s pretty lap, I’d bet,” Thomas interjected as he lit another cigarette.

“That’s the plan,” said Rena.

She shouldered the rifle and spoke over the savage rips of flesh as the dogs fed. Her own stomach didn’t bother to cry hunger anymore. It’d been days since she’d had more than a hunk of bread or a bowl of cold porridge so thin she could barely coat the battered tin spoon with it. She felt clean. Empty. The type of hungry that was past caring.

“Welp, ever need a couple assholes to go huntin’ with, ya know where we are,” he smiled brightly.

“Been a pleasure workin’ with ya. Nice to have somebody who don’t bitch,” Thomas said, with a pointed look to his companion.

Rena turned to the dogs as they growled, both jostling for the same tear in the belly, scarlet to their shoulders and chests. She half-smiled before turning back to the two hunters and nodding a little.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

She whistled for the dogs to follow and began to head off. Once she’d reached a suitable distance, comfortably for from Vick and Thomas, she held down the button on her earpiece after practising her line over and over in her head.

Once the reception cut through, a voice came from the other end of the line.

“That you finished already, kid? Sheesh! You don’t stick around.”

“Libertus, get your damn feet off the- wait… Is that her? Did everything go okay?”

“It went fine, and even if it didn’t, technically classified,” said Rena. “I’m clear for pickup, you guys got the co-ordinates?”

“Just waitin’ on ‘em coming through now and- there. Yup, we’ve got em. Sending pickup crew.”

“Alright, see you when I see you.”

“Oh, we’re not coming out to get you,” Crowe took the mic of Libertus’ headset. “Nobody tell you Tredd broke his ribs and he’s off the deployment list? Guess who just got lucky.”

Rena shook her head with a smile. “Not fuckin’ me...”

* * *

Her throat was dry. So was her mouth. Rena’s head felt like it’d been filled with lead. She frowned deeply and tried to remember where she was. She could see bricks. The dogs, always a good sign, had collapsed on the armchair, all tired limbs and refusal to move. Whatever had roused her had been nothing, then. If it wasn’t enough to wake the dogs, then it must’ve been in her own head. The dim light afforded by the streetlights outside and the blue of night in the city revealed more in shadows than light. She could make out the coffee table, the rucksack dumped on it, the belts, her knife still safely holstered to one of them.

Her eyes drifted shut. Everything was here then. There was no sense of wrongness in her gut, no hint that something might be wrong. Woken by nothing more than her own mind, possibly a dream she didn’t remember, Rena settled into the warm, battered leather of the sofa and let sleep wrap around her again.

She’d reached the level of consciousness, or rather a lack thereof, in which sound was the primary sense. Every small noise seemed louder. The quiet snores of the dogs. A car passing outside. Knocking.

_Fuck._

_Off._

As she began to sink, the door was met by knuckles again. Rena groaned into the sofa. Her exhausted brain ran the sound over and over in her head until she realised one crucial detail.

Three knocks. There had been three.

It took far too much effort to push herself from the couch, her entire body stiff and warm with the delicious ache of too much use, as though the muscles were biting into her bones.

“You home?” came through the door, low and muffled in a voice she recognised immediately, even barely conscious.

“…No…” she croaked, coughing to pull her voice back but she only roughened it. “Why didn’t you use… the fuckin’… key?”

Her head met the doorframe first with a thump. She frowned and pouted before sliding her hand down the door to find the handle and below that, her own key, still in the lock.

“Fuck, nevermind,” she mumbled. It was only just loud enough to get through the door.

The lock clicked. She opened the door to the yellowish light of the hallway and a dark silhouette.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” she yawned, barely able to keep her eyes open as she clung to the door to stay standing. “You alright?”

“Are you?” he asked.

“Yeah…m’fine.”

Gladio stepped in, put an arm around her waist and closed the door for her before turning the key in the lock. Rena still drooped against the wood. He shook his head and crossed the small room in long strides to turn on the lamps and illuminate the room in a soft glow. The dogs barely lifted their heads and only opened their eyes when the light drew them from sleep. He stopped in the centre of the room and locked on his initial concern.

Rena leant back against the door, head forwards as she rubbed at her eyes and yawned again. She blinked and looked up. Eyes quickly focused on the details of the room, made sense of her surroundings and caught on him. She tried to take in the details of a few days’ absence.

He looked well. No dark circles under his eyes, no bruises on his neck, hair soft and flowing in its soft tufts. In a few days, she’d almost forgotten the beauty of him. The black t-shirt hung close as he shouldered out of his green leather jacket and hung it over the arm of the sofa. For all his warm tones, the soft blaze in his eyes was always the one she felt most. He took a step towards her. Amber hues creased with a smile as she took her own tired, exhausted step. He almost seemed nervous, and rightfully so; Rena was positively feral looking.

Gladio met her in an enveloping hug and squeezed her tight as she wrapped her arms around his waist and leant into him. He kept her on her feet and swayed them both in a gentle rhythm. Lips met in gentle reintroduction. Both were chapped, both warm and soft. She reeked of woodsmoke, sweat and blood. A smile still pushed at his lips as he draped around her and lightly kissed her hair. For all the jagged edges and rough elements of her current form, her presence was as soft and relieving as summer rain after days of a threatening storm in close heat.

“I stink,” Rena mumbled into his chest.

Gladio snorted and took another comically loud sniff of the scents of exertion. “Yeah.”

“’M gonna go shower… Alright?”

“Okay.”

She didn’t move. Gladio beamed and laughed before he spoke quietly. Each word in that warm tone conflicted her. He was lulling her to sleep just as much as he excited her and made her long to stay awake.

“I’ll still be here when you get back, y’know? You’re gonna have to try harder than smellin’ like behemoth shit to shake me off.”

Rena kept her arms wrapped around his waist and leant back to look at him. Eyes all but closed, she muttered with a soft frown.

“How’d you know it was behemoth?”

“Cause it’s pretty damn awful,” he nodded, wrinkling his nose for effect.

“Fuckin’ right it is,” she slurred.

Gladio gave her another squeeze before he let go carefully, as if she’d flop onto the floor in a pile of jelly if he did, or be so stiff she’d simply fall over, still in standing position. Rena used the walls to guide her, but not for support, as she dragged herself to the bathroom and audibly growled at the bright lights. Gladio snorted, shook his head, and was greeted by a wet nose at his hand.

With the door closed, her eyes finally adjusted. As the room came back from sparking black at the edges, she turned on the shower and bit her lip at the feel of water. It sputtered stone cold before against her palm. She slipped out to grab fresh clothes. When she returned, a dark shape caught her eye. Rena’s head whipped up.

It was her own reflection. Deep purple surrounded her eyes, and her skin was the palest she’d seen it. Exhaustion was draining her warmer colours. Her hair was the real issue. Dark, greasy and curls so far gone from their usual soft definition, it made her narrow her eyes.

Warm water and the mere shock of being wet after days of knowing only the moisture of her own sweat woke her gradually. Colder water would’ve done the trick, but an audible curse would only gather his concerned attention. Rena let her head hang forward to soak her hair and caught sight of the water in the bottom of the tub. Instead of the usual clear, or occasional red, the rinsings were a sandy brown.

She scrubbed every grain of it away, first with a shower puff, then with a pumice, until her skin fizzed from the sudden rough treatment. Each and every tangle in her hair was tamed, one by one. She combed her fingers through them all. Tiny knots were easy. Small mats were more of an issue. The amount of hair she lost convinced her there was a bald spot. Still, she washed it until it was dark and worked conditioner through it to finish. After a final rinse, the originally stringy mop had been reclaimed and pooled in her hand like melted chocolate when she gathered it to squeeze the water out.

Rena had barely finished drying when she yawned and folded the towel clumsily before brushing her teeth. The combination she’d picked whilst half asleep impressed her in terms of comfort and practicality. Black panties and a navy v neck t-shirt she’d bought months before and in too big a size, it slipped off one of her shoulders. She’d just pulled the fabric over her head when there was a knock at the door.

“You okay?”

She gathered her dirty clothes into the laundry basket and opened up. With fresher eyes, she was able to actually focus on Gladio. He met her with a warm smile and reached for her hands. Fingers intertwined as if they’d never been parted. Rena rested her forehead against his chest with a tired groan that never left her throat. He kissed the top of her head.

“Better?”

“Better,” he smiled. Gladio took a quiet sniff of her hair. Honey was the main scent, made all the sweeter by the salted, lingering memory of woodsmoke that clung stubbornly to her. “Hungry?”

“No…” was muttered into his chest as she shook her head.

“Dinner’s ready,” he crooned.

He’d be damned if she didn’t eat. Right now, as much as she hated it, would deny it to the ends of Eos and didn’t recognise it in herself, Rena needed taken care of.  She’d have done the same for him, and _had,_ on more than one occasion. Gladio would play every card in his hand.

“Made it myself.”

The quiet groan signalled that he was getting somewhere. No reaction would’ve meant disinterest.

“It’s your favourite.”

Another sound, more like a whimper. He was winning. Now he just had to make it seem like her idea. Make her see _why_ it was necessary. Gladio was perfectly aware that she’d catch on immediately, but it was worth a shot.

“You eat when you got back?”

She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. Rena pulled her face from the solid, gentle warmth of his chest and rested her chin on it to look up at him as she frowned and tried to piece together the shreds of a day completed purely on muscle memory, let alone conscious cognitive effort.

“I think?”

“D’you have breakfast?”

She narrowed her eyes in thought. Gladio breathed a sigh and shook his head.

“Not good. C’mon.”

The groaned protest made him snort a laugh as he led her by the hand.

“You didn’t have to, you know. I’d have been fine.”

“I wanted to, even if you woulda,” he assured softly. He stood by the sofa and gestured to it before gently holding her hips and guiding her down. Fully conscious and exhausted, she frowned but let him do it. “Sit your ass down, I’ll be back.”

Rena smiled and shook her head at the brand of care that suited him so well. Somewhat bristly on the surface but scratch a little further and there lay the softness. Gladio padded back from the kitchen with two steaming bowls. He handed one to Rena before setting himself down next to her. It was perfectly natural and routine for them to settle next to each other, curved to each other’s sides as she sighed and smiled.

In the bowl was soft, steaming rice, cooked slowly and with care until it had taken on the other flavours of the dish. Late season truffle, at least three varieties of mushrooms, the season’s asparagus, all topped by a smoked and then roasted chickatrice fillet and a sprinkling of hard, peppery cheese. The scent dancing up from it cupped her cheeks and may as well have kissed her for all the warmth it held. It was food for both body and soul.

“How’d the trip go?” he asked, shoulder pressed to hers as they curled up on the couch together.

“Pretty good. Nice clean kills. Weather was cool but not _cold._ Got paired up with these two guys, couldn’t have been more Hunter-ish if they’d fuckin’ tried, and chased down a mesmenir for a couple days. Called in, got picked up by Tredd and Pelna- _oh the joys_ – reported back to HQ, came home, bathed the dogs, sat down for five minutes and… Yeah. Kind of-.”

“Blacked out?” he raised his brows before taking another mouthful.

“Nah, just fell asleep,” she said, shaking her head. As she speared her first forkful, she glanced at the molten amber that watched her with a resumed captivation. “How were things here?”

Gladio weaved his head from side to side as he formulated an answer and tried to summarise the past five days. Her absence had been a strange feeling. It had rested uneasy in him the entire time, as though it was pacing in his chest, back and forth endlessly. It paused long enough to allow him sleep, then resumed as soon as he woke and searched the sheets for her company.

“Ah, same old, same old. Blondie got himself a motorcycle. Looks damn cool on it too. Iggy found a new way to sneak veggies into Noct; muffins. Noct was fine ‘til he figured it out and almost choked himself, then Iggy. Iris is picking her new classes for after the summer and Nyx finally called me out for that round I owed him.”

“He better be wearing a fuckin’ helmet,” she said. Rena blew on the forkful of risotto and chewed it while Gladio answered.

“Yeah, he does. Hates what it does to his hair but you know what? I can never tell the damn difference.”

She snorted and swallowed the mouthful. “How’s Nyx?”

“He’s good. Misses home but that’s just the way it is.”

“What about Iris? What’s she thinking of taking?” Rena asked, genuinely curious as she took another forkful of the earthy, well-seasoned rice and chewed. The velvet, buttery warmth of it was almost enough to earn a hum of approval. Earthy flavours blended, umami and deeply savoury.

“Uhh, Lucian, math, history, social studies, religious and moral and another one I can’t remember.”

“It’ll keep her busy.”

She’d folded her legs underneath herself and rested the bowl in her lap between bites. Gladio quickly played with the sodden curls still taking back their form before leaning forwards to pluck a glass of water from the coffee table. He passed it to her and spoke.

“What did you take?” he asked, brows gathered as she ate quietly. Rena widened her eyes, swallowed and answered.

“Lucian, math, chemistry, biology, physics and history,” she said. After a few seconds of silence, she turned to face him. Gladio had a broad, bright smile on his face. “What?”

“Nerd.”

“Have you seen how many books you read?”

“Have you seen the books _you_ read?!” he asked with a grin, eyebrows raised.

Both pairs of eyes locked to the copy on the coffee table. Yet another crime novel. Thick, small and utterly captivating, it took place over the course of no more than a few days and stretched every fine detail into a key for the case. Eyes narrowed, Rena snatched the knitted throw and cast it over the book. She shrugged casually and gathered the last of the meal in the bowl.

“I never question _your_ books, even though you read some shit.”

“You just did!” laughed Gladio as Rena held a deadpan expression and finished off her dinner.

She put the bowl on the table then leant back and curled up to his side to drink her glass of water. What began as a sip quickly turned into an empty glass as she drained it. It was only then she noticed that there was music playing. Quiet acoustic. A quick glance revealed his phone sitting in the dock, open on a playlist.

This was everything. Music. Food. Dogs. Him. Exhausted and aching, but restful. It was the lull between different types of hard graft. This was a balance she’d never known. It had always been _more. Faster. Further. Longer. More kills. No misses._ Stubborn as she was, the only one who could dictate her actions was herself. There had never been time for sitting back and allowing herself to be tired. Balance was new and yet instinctively familiar.

Her eyes fell on the dogs. They’d always known how and when to relax. Flopped in a heap on the armchair, they were fast asleep and cleaned of the field stains, all grass, soot and blood. Thick coats were plush and perfectly at home against each other, one dark burnt shades of russet curled in a ball, and the other mottled in wheat and frost, his legs sticking up in the air, paws twitching as he dreamed. To know about the good things in life, learning from a dog was never a bad place to start.

Rena’s focus came back to the table, and the empty bowl. She could feel it sitting in her stomach, heavier than anything she’d had in days, as though she’d discovered food for the first time, a fullness where hunger was standard.

Green eyes moved to her lap. Her hands. The scars on her knuckles in their lavender-violet shades and tougher skin. She could feel another hand, but it wasn’t her own. Gladio’s fingertips traced light circles and swirls, like new ferns eternally unfurling, against her thigh as his arm wrapped, solid and strong, around her back.

It slipped away.

Gladio stood and held his hand out for the glass. Rena handed it over and stifled another yawn. He smiled as fatigue threatened to unfurl her from the comfortable ball she’d formed.

“Was it good?”

“ _Very,_ ” she assured, sweeping the first of the unruly curls back from her face. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

Gladio huffed a laugh before he raised his eyebrows, cocked his head and made his way to the kitchen, offering his explanation over his shoulder.

“I was Iggy’s sous before you came along. He helped me out with getting some of the ingredients but the recipe’s the one you gave him. Always liked helping Jared out in the kitchen too, even though I got in the way a lot of the time. Iris likes to bake, I… make sure she doesn’t set the house on fire, which gets us to our next course…” Gladio trailed off.

The quiet sounds of him in the kitchen just seemed right. Pottering about, doing what normal people did.

He returned to the living room with two plates, held high so that she couldn’t see what was on them, and another glass of water. The sofa dipped beside her as he sat down and presented dessert. It was her favourite again. Carrot cake. Soft cream cheese frosting around the rich, sweetly spiced sponge jewelled with chopped walnuts both in the cake and stuck to the frosting around the sides of the generous slice. She didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but carrot cake was a different ball game.

“Iris helped…Well… She made it, but it was my idea,” he said, clinging to his involvement as he held out a fork for her. Rena took it and shook her head with a smile. “What?”

He asked it softly, the word warmed by the gravel in his voice that always seemed in eternal furnace. Rena got herself lost watching the lazy campfire flames in his eyes. Sometimes when she looked at him, it was as though she’d come in from the cold, soaked and chilled to the marrow, only to be shed bare in front of a blazing hearth and warmed. He could see, she knew it and she let him. Even when he didn’t understand, he tried. Rena took a deep breath when she remembered to speak.

“You’re spoiling me again.”

Gladio grinned and nudged his forehead against her temple.

“Nah. Spoiling you woulda been throwing you in a spa all day, taking you out to dinner and then coming back here to wine and rose petals; but you’d hate that.”

Rena took a moment to mull it over, even though she agreed with him. The pearl still felt heavy at times. It wasn’t bad, just new. A different kind of bearing from dog tags. In some ways it was lighter because it meant she didn’t have to pretend. In other ways, it was heavier. It was only her. There was nowhere to hide. She still wore the tags on duty and hunts, but the pearl was always close. She’d slipped it on after her shower. The weight of it felt binding, and in no fearful way.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she sighed.

“I know,” said Gladio. He pressed a sweet kiss to her cheek before whispering with all the soft warmth of a candle flame. “Now eat your damn cake.”

Gladio, who’d already sampled said delight, cleared his plate just before something shoved at his ankles. A quick peek over his lap revealed Seyna, who’d forced her way under socked feet and lain down on her side with a hefty sigh. Gladio leant forwards, put the plate on the coffee table and gave her a quick pet before leaning back onto the sofa and wrapping around Rena again.

“Ah, no. You’re not finished.”

“I can’t,” said Rena, as she slipped the fork under the last bite of cake. Decadent risotto, rich cake and two pints of water weighed heavy in her stomach and bordered on nauseating. She was half-sure the shirt would fit by morning. For now, it was loose and bared a shoulder to him.

“You can.”

“I’m full.”

Gladio puffed a laugh through his nose as she stared sleepily at the final hurdle, held inches from her face.

“C’mon,” he coaxed. She frowned at the cake. Her mouth opened.

Rena closed it with a huff and held the fork to her left, the cake now nearer Gladio than herself. He grinned and shook his head before taking the bite. Rena withdrew the fork and left it, with the plate, on the table. She’d only partially leant back when soft lips pressed to her shoulder, light as fallen blossom. As his kisses crept along, then up, all the way to her cheek, a smile grew on Rena’s face.

Lips met, sweet and spiced. Familiar, careful fingers buried in her hair, the curls still cool from being damp as they dried and took on their springing nature with a softness he’d only encountered a handful of times before.

The kiss became deeper as spices faded for heat. There was fire in her, burning slow but hot. Thick, dark hair ran smooth between her fingers, and she could feel his jaw moving against her palm with ever ebb and flow of the kiss. He quelled it with every languid movement returned. Heat pooled between her legs. She bit his bottom lip gently, barely grazing the tender flesh between her teeth. They parted for air. Gladio stayed close enough that lashes kept together and lips brushed against each other.

“Work tomorrow?”

Rena sighed before answering. “Half past seven.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” he whispered.

Gladio met her in another brief trip to nowhere before taking the plates to the kitchen. She’d only just made it to the coat stand and the leashes when a hand was on her hip and lips brushed her cheek.

“I got it, go brush your teeth. Again,” he said, correcting himself.

“I’m-.”

“Fine, I know, but you’re also not wearing any pants.”

She didn’t look down, but her fingertips brushed against her thighs. Bare, sure enough.

“Fuck it,” Rena cursed before padding to the bathroom.

She was halfway through brushing her teeth, or so she thought, when the door to the apartment opened, closed and was locked quietly, with quiet footsteps and the quicker padding of paws on the floorboards. She stopped moving the toothbrush. The hand gripping the edge of the sink tightened as she locked her elbow to stay standing. Rena closed her eyes again

Something slipped around her waist. She didn’t have to look. She could smell him. The warmth, as though she’d come into a room with a woodburning stove that had been blazing for hours. Leather. Earthy sage and clean, cutting salt and when he reached to sweep her hair out of her face, lemon oil.

There was a steadfastness to him. One a tired mind and body trusted. Rena half-leant and was half-pulled against him. Both grew and shrank with every breath, with the tide of living. He swayed from side to side and took her with him. Barely awake, she brushed her teeth and was nudged to spit before he did. The two sharp taps of his brush against the edge of the sink made her jolt, but a stroking thumb at her waist and a cool, minted kiss to her neck smoothed her down again.

Finding her bed was a matter of instinct and muscle memory. She knew the walls now and had known for years to keep her feet close to the ground when she stepped, so that any dog deciding to lie in the way would be nudged before she could trip over it. There were no dogs, and soon enough the sheets, no matter how foreign and familiar they felt, met her knees.

Rena had just settled down on her stomach when the bed dipped at her side. She turned her head towards him. Gladio cleared his throat, as he always did before he went to bed, and slung his arm over her back, thumb stroking the aches that riddled her flesh. She was too tired to care.

She had everything she needed. Her dogs, a full stomach, a place to sleep, the safety and time to do so, another dawn heading her way and something else she’d never thought would be part of that list. Another person. Rena had him.

It was as if he could read her mind. Rested on his side, he wound his arms around her and squeezed her tight before loosening his hold but keeping it. The quiet, innocent kisses given in the lull before sleep grew clumsier and further from their targets. It didn’t matter. They were there, and they were them. Together.

Something was touching her. Rena still needed to get used to that sometimes. She took her first deep breath of the morning, enough to fill her lungs and rouse her. His scent came with it, though it seemed faded these days, as if it were becoming lost or she was growing so used to it, she could no longer tell it apart from her own. The notes so intrinsically played, they seemed the substance and shadow of each other.

One side was warmer. Her right. There was a weight on her leg. It was hairy. Not as hairy as a dog. Tickled. Not as much as the curious fingertips that mapped her, as though this were the first time. Subtle callouses coursed over her skin. Papercuts snagged, at times.

Rena fought her eyes open, but only managed it partially. When she spoke, the touches stopped but didn’t pull away. Her voice was hoarse and barely there.

“Haven’t you got a run to go on?”

Gladio breathed a laugh. He mumbled his own croaky reply.

“It can wait.”

She turned onto her side. His touches were so curious, so piqued, it was as if he were learning her all over again. They passed over her hip as easily as wind over a snow drift, and as soft as the flakes themselves. He grinned when stroking the dip of her waist made her dodge lightly. Fingertips journeyed up to her shoulder and arms before a thumb rested and stroked her cheek.

His eyes were something else. They always had been. Brown and deep, like soaked, _good_ earth. The thick lashes that lined them revealed their length when he looked down and smiled bashfully, as fingertips ghosted over her thigh. Gladio held something in his eyes. That look she never could understand. Solemn and sweet, absolute and quiet. To her, it was just Gladio, though he hadn’t always looked at her like that.

They were both so soft. The rest of the world didn’t matter, and as long as they stayed there, it didn’t exist. They were nowhere, and together.

His fingertips travelled up her hip again, playing over the curve bared by the shirt gathered around her waist.

“What’re you doing?”

Gladio’s eyes met hers as though she’s pulled him from a trance, completely vulnerable for a moment. He took a deep breath before letting his words float on the exhale, like paper cranes on water.

“Nothin’. Just….” A frown came over him, one that was making sense of his thoughts and feelings, channelling them into a single sentence. “You feel good.”

The bare, honest admission was one that made her smile and shake her head. Their words were droplets on a pond, sending their ripples to be calmed by water lilies and reeds, the soft obstructions of sheets as white as petals and the rougher walls of the room. At her silent denial, Gladio smiled as though he couldn’t believe it.

“You do,” he nodded.

Rena breathed a sigh and moved her left hand from underneath her to comb back the wild mess of his hair in the morning. Hers was a permanent bedhead. His was dark and thick, easily thrown by sleep. Gladio’s lashes fell shut when she stroked over the side of his face with the back of her finger. His right hand came up, gently shadowed hers before intertwining their fingers, the back of her hand in his palm. Lips chapped by sleep were pressed to her wrist.

She couldn’t help but do it. Especially when he was like that. All kind eyes and softened before he took up strength and arms for the day. He could be weak, if he needed to. He could be scared, restless, whatever he needed to be, in these walls and with her. She was as much like a river as a forest. Standing in her presence long enough washed things away with time as her craft.

She leant forwards and met his lips gently, open and then falling shut like flowers at sunset.

Though it was morning, this was the beginning of the end of their time together. Dusk till dawn had been their time for each other. There had been times sleep had been staved off, denying themselves simply to be in each other’s company. It was a shame that creatures of the night were denied such soft possibilities, when it was only life that had demanded it. This sanctuary was a hard fought peace.

Gladio’s smile grew wide enough to break the kiss, as much as he fought it. They parted with all the gentle ending of a petal from blossom, irreversible but only natural. Soft smiles stretched as she rubbed the tip of her nose to his. He squeezed her hip and opened his eyes when he felt her drawing away.

He hated to be the one to say it first.

“We gotta get up.”

Rena growled and buried her face in the pillow, much to his amusement. Gladio snorted and chuckled before nosing at the fresh curls and pressing a kiss to her cheek when he found it.

“C’mon.”

“You’ve got a run to go on.”

“Yeah, and if _you_ don’t get up, I’ll drag you with-.”

“I’m up,” she said promptly, pushing herself from the mattress so that her torso was clear of the bed. Gladio’s hand on her hip made her want to sink back down and curl underneath him, especially when he smiled so sleepily. He took a deep breath, filled his lungs completely, before huffing as he sat up. He met her lips first.

“That’s more like it,” he mumbled into the kiss.

“Yeah? I’ve got something better,” she grinned.

Rena slipped her hands to the back of his neck. A deep hum sounded in his chest. The kisses gained skill as drowsiness left them. She could only just cling to enough consciousness to slip her hand down and dance light fingertips between his shoulder blades.

Gladio tensed and fell back onto the bed with a thud, head thrown back in wild laughter.

“Damn it! You’ve gotta be f-fuckin’ kiddin’ me- no! Rena!”

He thrashed and arched as she tickled him, until he was breathless and rosy at the cheeks. Her own laughs joined his. She finally ceased her attacks, planted her hands either side of his head as her hips lay beside his.

“Still gotta… get up,” he panted through a broad smile.

“You’re no fun,” said Rena, shaking her head. Gladio puffed at the curls in play.

“No? Alright.”

Gladio’s attacks were relentless and expert. Her ribs and hips were the prime locations that played witness to his tickling.

“N-no! Gladio! Stop it! Fuckin’- _argh-hahaha!”_

“Who’s no fun now, huh?” he teased, kneeling on the bed as she clawed at the sheets, curled in a defensive ball and shaking with laughter. “You don’t think I’m fun?”

“S-stop it! _AGH-_ fuckin’- bastard!”

Gladio fixed his hands at her hips and held her flat to the bed as he loomed over her.

“Up.”

“No.”

_“Up.”_

“Fuck off.”

From any other mouth he’d take offence. She had a way of making curses sound like sweet nothings. Gladio sighed raggedly before diving down to bind her in a deep kiss. He braced himself with one forearm against the mattress, fingers lost in her hair as her arms looped around his neck.

“Up,” he whispered against her lips, mouth already curling into a smile as he tried to persuade her.

_Stubborn as they come._

Rena countered quickly. “Run.”

“You still gonna be awake when I get back?” he asked as he raised his eyebrows.

“Maybe…” she smiled, seeking out another kiss. Gladio met her for it and hummed. “I’ll try?”

“Good enough.”

After a series of small pecks to wean themselves off each other, Gladio put his feet down on the floor at his side of the bed. He was halfway through putting on his watch when something moved. He looked down. White paws and a dark muzzle poked out from under the bed. That quickly became Ochre as he arched out from the small space and stretched, first putting his back end high before sinking it to the ground in what looked like a painful act of contortion. The dog briefly licked at Gladio’s hand before hopping up onto the bed.

Gladio stood and plucked his basketball shorts, a tank and socks from his drawer in the scratched cherrywood chest. Once he’d thrown sleep-heavy limbs into them, he turned to get the dogs and had to smile.

She was flat on her front, Ochre draped over her torso as he lay on his back. Seyna had curled up on her legs and only moved her yellow eyes to peek up at Gladio. He snorted a laugh and left the bedroom.

After putting on his shoes, he whistled for the dogs and waited. Seyna was first, as always. She stood still to have her harness and leash put on. Another whistle, louder, had no answer. Just as he took a step towards the hallway, Ochre barrelled down it, tried to stop, skidded and crashed into his legs. Grinning and shaking his head, Gladio suited him up. He fished his key from the bowl and let himself out.

It was a fine winter morning. Crisp and cold, but the sun held enough warmth in its aurous rays to be felt on the skin. The east side bathed in that light as it gilded the brickwork. He could almost feel his tan deepening with every second, every stride and every breath taken in that quiet copper morning. The dogs kept close to his heels. In some moments, Gladio could feel himself freed from his mind. He simply ran, and as part of a pack. He raised his hand to strangers in greeting, dodged a mason and her wheelbarrow, and was nearly pulled clean off his feet when Ochre caught the scent of a bitch in heat.

The park was where the run really mattered. The cement and pavements gave way to soaked grass, still littered by the remaining leaves of autumn that had escaped rakes and piles, and air that just seemed cleaner. A sprinkling of the world outside the walls, fenced in by bricks and one of many sporadically littered throughout the city, like clumps of dirt thrown by a digging dog. Trees stood tall and silently proud with old wisdom. They’d seen the city change.

By the time he reached the tenement again, sweat beaded on his brow as the warmth of light exertion made both him and the dogs catch their breath. He wrinkled his nose outside the third floor, silently damning the cat, and then himself for damning the cat. He had just reached her floor when he heard something but couldn’t make it out.

He let himself in as quietly as he could, unleashed the dogs and made his way to the bedroom for fresh clothes. Bed was empty. She was up. Question was; where? She’d made the bed, so it hadn’t been a mad dash. Knowing her, and how tired she still was, she’d be in the kitchen making the strongest coffee she could ingest without clinging to the ceiling like a deranged cat.

He only stopped when he reached the bathroom. The door was closed. The faint drone of the shower running was beyond and… There it was.

She was singing.

The biggest grin bloomed slow and fond on Gladio’s face. Every second that went by, her voice washed over his skin and soothed him as her hands did. Smooth as honey. Sweet and low and soulful. Gladio’s eyes twinkled as he leant his temple against the doorframe, not wanting to interrupt her yet. There was still the fire of whiskey in her voice. She’d never lose it. It was the frayed edge of silk. It was as much hers as everything else.

When she came to a pause, Gladio’s beaming smile settled into a more acceptable version. He tried the door quietly and slipped into the bathroom. Rena didn’t take up her morning serenade again. He stripped off, left his sweaty clothes by the laundry basket to take home later and made his way to the edge of the tub.

He stepped in quickly to avoid soaking the room and rested his hands on her hips.

“Mind if I join?”

“Little late to be asking.”

“I know,” he assured, quickly kissing her cheek as he reached past to pluck his small black puff and a bottle of shower gel.

Suds were worked up as Gladio let his eyes wander. She seemed… brighter. There was a dewy glow to her. He pinned it down to almost a week apart and forgetting just how pale she was. Hair gathered in a chaotic bun, the lines of her flowed as if she were as transient as the water. There was permanence and strength to her though. Hard muscles had their definition and tone. A supple softness covered her as easily as the honey scented bubbles she used to wash.

As she rinsed off, the scars were revealed. He searched for new additions to her collection. There were none. She had changed, though. She was fuller. Without gaining any weight, and likely having lost some on her trip, Rena simply seemed to fit her own skin better. Her marks were ones of a lifetime; scars that would stay with her. The more fleeting blossoms of bloody roses had been lost from her skin, as though a cold winter wind had stolen the blooms for its own. She was old and new. Timeless.

Gladio’s eyes wandered over her back, following the lines of her shoulders, waist, hips, thighs before sweeping back up to her ass. He bit the inside of his lip when she leant forwards to put the bottle on the edge of the tub. Gladio slowed his scrubbing, having absently washed the same patch of his chest for a solid minute, and considered what had to be one of his favourite views. Something was definitely different.

“They changed your PT?”

Rena was busy washing her face. She felt her own frown against her fingertips.

“Weeks ago. Why?”

It took him a second too long to answer, and when he did speak it was much too slowly.

“Uh, no reason. Just wondering.”

Rena deadpanned as she scrubbed either side of her nose. She could feel them. Eyes.

“Would it have anything to do with the fact you can’t stop staring at my ass?” she asked flatly before she leant under the stream of water to rinse her face.

“I could,” he defended, almost petulantly. “Just don’t wanna…”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, big guy,” Rena advised as she turned around and was met by the broad, bubble covered chest. A cheeky smile was playing at him, creasing his eyes, as his forearms rested on her hips. When he spoke, was each word was a heavy, burning coal. He almost purred as he looked her straight in the eye.

“This heart grows any fonder it’s gonna give out, honey.”

Smiling lips met blushed cheeks before he kissed her, slow and teasing. Large hands began to wander. They smoothed over broad hips before slipping around her thighs and back up to cup her ass. A hearty squeeze of flesh both soft and firm made him frown and hum deeply as he craved. When the kiss broke for breath, Rena spoke against his lips.

“Thought we agreed shower sex was a bad idea.”

Gladio shook his head and pouted. “I don’t remember you saying anythin’ about that.”

“Fuckin’ _conveniently.._.”

He smirked and pulled her flush to him. Warm skin was soaked as his half hard cock pressed against her. The look in green eyes could’ve stroked his jaw with a tease and threatened him with a bite at the same time. Gladio raised a single eyebrow; half-invitation, half-dare. She stroked a hand across his chest at an achingly slow pace, heading lower. A gentle throb in his cock made him grin.

Then she smeared the bubbles onto his cheek.

“Gladio. We’re two big people. In a small, slippery space. Nothing about this is a good idea.”

“So… that’s a no?” he checked, trying his luck.

“It’s a _not now_. We’d be late.”

Gladio snorted and let his head hang forwards. He nudged against her temple and spoke quietly.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

“I know,” she nodded, pressing a kiss to his stubbled cheek.

With his hands on her hips, Gladio stood up straight to get a good look at her. His eyebrow cocked when she stretched back to turn off the water and fully exposed her chest to him. She caught him looking and shook her head. Gladio chuckled and stepped out first. Pinched brows raised slightly in a question he already knew the answer to.

“You want coffee?”

“Please,” she tilted her head and wrapped a towel around herself.

Gladio nodded, met her for a quick kiss and slipped his hand under the towel.

“You got it, sweetcheeks,” he teased, just as he gave her ass a decent pinch.

He’d only just made it to the door in his mock escape when a towel was thrown at the back of his head. Gladio laughed and dried quickly, just enough to pull on boxers, before leaving the bathroom.

_Oh yeah. She’s back._

With a smile as bright as the morning, he tapped on the counter as the dogs sniffed at freshly washed legs and the kettle boiled. He brewed the coffee strong and left the mug steaming on the counter, far enough away from the edge that the dogs wouldn’t lick at the havoc-wreaking beverage. He’d just taken out a jug when a hand met his hip.

Rena appeared at his side, drew her hand across his back in her usual morning greeting, as if she’d never left, and got started on the eggs. Still damp across her shoulders, she’d dressed as she always did for breakfast; plain black underwear. She was still too warm for anything more in the Insomnian climate.

They were also both the same type of lazy.

The pair cooked together until the small kitchen was full of the buttery scent of scrambling eggs, frying tomatoes and mushrooms, toast and coffee. Pints of water were poured, Gladio’s mug filled with fresh orange juice and everything taken to the coffee table. The dogs were distracted with their own breakfasts before they took their seats on the sofa and ate together. The quieter sounds of the morning and familiar company was enough.

She finished first but didn’t clear her plate. Both were unusual. Gladio noticed.

“Y’okay?” he asked, gulping down his orange juice as thick brows began to pull together.

“Yeah, fine,” she said, tone perfectly honest. At his mild concern, Rena shrugged slightly and shook her head a little. “Just not hungry.”

He raised his eyebrows for a moment, in acceptance, and continued with the last of his own breakfast. The warmth at his side lifted. Rena stood with her plate and picked up his mug.

“Refill?” she offered.

Gladio cocked his head and cracked a smile. “If you’re going.”

She snorted and padded to the kitchen, both dogs sniffing at her plate as she passed and spoke over her shoulder.

“More like if I’ve got any left. You drank most of it last night.”

Gladio smirked like a child, whose deed had only been discovered after its execution. He hid the expression behind his glass of water when she entered back into his line of sight. From the sofa, he had a direct line of sight to part of the tiny kitchen. Whenever she stood at the sink, he could see her and each time she passed into his vision, something in him changed. It lounged, then sat, then swayed, then paced, claws out. Something unsettled him.

He cast his mind through his culinary endeavours the previous evening. The chickatrice had no obvious smell to indicate it being off but then again it was smoked, and the scent was strong. The mushrooms were all edible varieties, from a supermarket no less.

Rena went back to the sink and started the water to let it run until it was hot enough. She really was glowing. Maybe a bit too much. She’d always been pale, and almost deathly so in the winter, but when that combined with a soft shine, Gladio saw it as clammy. Nauseous. She stepped to the side again.

_Something on the hunt. Maybe why she didn’t eat. Tick, maybe? Bad water?_

His eyes snapped back to her when she moved back to the sink, turned off the tap and stretched her arms above her head with a huge yawn. Fully drawn taut, the lines of her ebbed and flowed over bold curves. Broad hips. She really did look fuller, in a way he couldn’t quite piece together.

_New PT. Noticed it because you hadn’t seen her in a couple days. Makes sense._

Gladio noticed the grip she had on the sink. White-knuckled and elbows locked. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell from here. Rena stepped to the side again as Gladio’s mind spiralled. There were a myriad of explanations swirling in his head. He considered them quietly over his breakfast, as if he were looking at something as inevitable and everyday as the weather forecast.

_Food poisoning? Maybe just a full stomach after a couple days of being empty. Wrong season for ticks. Too warm? Tired? Sick? What the hell’s going-?_

_Oh._

_Oh shit._

Gladio was caught on a pendulum, swinging between excitement and fear. The thought of it both made him smile and knit his brows. In the midst of the confusion, his mind began to play.

He was half-sure that when she appeared in his line of sight again, side on, she’d be holding her hips differently, or that there’d be the slightest hint of a swell in her belly. Something put there by both of them. Something created.

His imagination was outrunning his reason. It quickly gave him sketches, rough, transient thoughts of how she’d look if she were full and heavy and carrying as it grew, day by day. As life took root and was guarded by the both of them, as formidable a force as they were. How she’d feel, all soft and plush around something new. What it’d be like to lie with her at night and feel both her and it react when he let his hand rest on them. What it’d be like to be one of three, or maybe more? What name? Her eyes? His? Definitely dark hair, but curls? What would it be like to wrap an arm around her, and cradle what was theirs in the other? Would they be good parents?

Logic and reason was quick to sit him down and dash the fizzing in his gut, like a hand striking pieces from a board.

She took her pills. Took her tests. She might not want that yet. Or at all. They’d never talked about it. She was healthy. Young. Too young. So was he, now that he thought about it.

They’d have to make major changes. They’d have to come clean and tell everyone. He’d bring shame on his family, unless he popped the question within the next week and married her as soon as possible. _If_ she agreed. She might decide not to go through with it. She’d have to take leave. He could take some, but there was nothing to stop him being called in the middle of the night. Gods forbid her family found out.

Movement up ahead gathered his attention as his thoughts lay strewn on the floor. He gathered what little he could and tried not to focus on her stomach when she walked towards him, mug held out with the handle towards him. Was there a swell? Was he just imagining things?

“You alright?” she asked, dark brows knitted as she looked down at him.

Gladio looked up and for a moment, he was struck. Held steady and yet speared by a dark green gaze, he felt his eyes widen. Soft strength, quiet and humble even as she stood tall. A few days in the wild had put that glint back in her eyes and sharpened it until it was as bright as her knife, or a dog’s tooth in the dark.

“When was the last time you took a test?” he asked, his own frown forming as he swallowed thickly.

Rena’s eyes widened, then narrowed in thought.

“Three weeks ago? Due to take one on Monday, why?”

Gladio raised his brows. “Can… we bring that forward?”

She blinked at him for a moment before she sighed and waved her hand in acceptance.

“Alright, give me twenty minutes,” she said, bringing yet another full glass of water to her mouth.

* * *

It was settled then. This was the way things were going to go.

They’d continue as they had done.

One pink line.

Gladio was met with one conclusive thought to settle his mind, as though it were a key to lock a door.

_One day._

He shut a more physical door behind him. Mahogany. Heavy. Simple. The end of the hallway was the deep blue of the late-winter evening. The days were getting longer already. He toed off his shoes, nudged them under the rack with his foot. Gladio was halfway down the hall when she called from the kitchen.

“Get it fixed?”

“Yeah, she just couldn’t reach the lightbulb,” he said, flattening the empty box.

The tiles were cold, even through his socks. He turned and peeked through the patio doors on his way to the kitchen to throw the little lightbulb box out. The garden was dark, a deep peacock blue, dotted with clusters of fallen stars as the first hellebores bloomed white and shone with the dim light of the solar lamps. Even in winter, it was well kept in her honour. For a moment, he could feel his necklace. It usually made no more impact than his own skin or the ink that marked it.

Gladio turned towards the warm glow of the kitchen but kept his eyes on the garden. He blinked, shifted his focus and stopped dead.

She looked perfectly at home, like she belonged within these walls. The warmth within the annexe had gotten to her. Double glazing and a thermostat kept things comfortable for him but could easily bother someone from a colder clime. To keep him warm and herself cool, she’d changed herself instead of the environment.

Bare legs, strong under pale skin and scars, led up to the fateful red flannel that was the flag to the bull. Wrinkled, creased and too big for her, it fell from one of her shoulders. Black lingerie, simple but lace. The calm expression as she stirred cups of coffee, one at a time, was partially hidden by that mess of hair. Gladio remembered himself, shook his head and padded to the bin on the other side of the kitchen.

She heard him clear his throat quietly. Warm fingers brushed her thighs. Rena’s initial deadpan expression gave way for a small smile when his arms wrapped around her waist and lips pressed to her neck as they swayed from side to side.

“Those are new,” he purred.

He drew a single fingertip along the waistband of the high-cuts before his palm smoothed a spot that made her shake her head slowly; the juncture between hip and thigh, where lace gave way to smooth skin. Lips began to work a bruise into her neck, and how she’d missed the sparking warmth of bursting vessels and flesh forced to bloom.

“Don’t wreck them,” she said quietly.

The gentle bites at her neck were enough for her eyes to drift shut as hands roamed, his right over her thigh as the left coursed upwards before slipping in to paw at her breast. He knew just how to tie a knot in her gut.

The lips dragging down her neck moved. “Expensive?”

“No,” she whispered, head tilted to allow him more skin, more canvas, her pulse. “Just my new favourites.”

“Yeah? Mine too,” he grinned against her shoulder.

The hand on her thigh guided her leg to the side before sweeping up and cupping her in his hand. He stroked over the fabric slowly, just to tease. Rena refused to go down without a fight and bit her bottom lip to ground herself in mild pain. In trying to distract herself with other sensations, the warm press of his chest against her shoulders was joined by another presence. Even through her shirt and his pants, she could feel him against the small of her back as he hardened.

Her lips parted when he slipped a hand underneath the lace, as if she hadn’t already soaked it. Gladio knew her too well. The brush of a fingertip against her clit was enough to cause a hitch in her breath. One of her hands was flat on the worktop. The other roamed as she smirked, followed the curve of her hip before splaying flat against his torso. Guided by familiar lines, she returned the favour and wound hand into his pants, under the boxers and found him hard and heavy. He backed away an inch or so to give her room to play. Gladio broke from another forming bruise to give a breathy sigh as he rubbed circles into her clit.

Her hand withdrew, and he stopped immediately. Rena turned, still pinned between him and the counter, and met him with a game smile. He returned it as he took in the blushed cheeks and soft, hazy hunger that pulled at her.

Both met in a hummed kiss as hands explored and resumed. With both hands free, she freed his cock from his pants and wrapped her hand around him. Gladio delved further than the sensitive bundle of nerves and pressed two fingers against her entrance to draw yet more circles. Teeth squeezed his bottom lip. He parted and watched her with half-lidded eyes.

“Stop teasing.”

“You sure about that?” he asked, a smirk fixed on lips that reddened with every kiss.

Green eyes fixed on brown and felt themselves fuse, like a forest taking root in earth. Rena had that warm, bare feeling again. Safe. There was still something in them she couldn’t understand. After too long, she whispered in soft sincerity.

“Damn you.”

He smiled and caught her lips again, one hand holding the back of her neck to angle her. Thick locks played between her fingers as she combed through his hair. Gladio relied on that binding. He moved his other hand away, earning a whine that made him grin, and held her hip. They began to steer away. He led and began to walk backwards from the kitchen.

Suitably distracted, Gladio tripped over his own feet. Both went down silently with the swift thump of his landing, and the higher thwack of her knees against the tiles.

“Agh… my _ass,”_ he groaned.

His head had been kept clear of the ground and saved from a knock against the hard floor. She still had her hand fixed in his hair, but at the back of his skull. Both fell into laughs. Rena leant her forehead to his chest and shook her head. When she finally looked up, both became aware of their positioning. Her knees had landed either side of his thighs. Still grinning, they could barely look at each other with straight faces.

“Well, how did we end up here?” she asked in a harmlessly mocking tone. Gladio shrugged and buried a hand in her hair.

“This’ll work.”

The kiss was deep, and swiftly became heated. In a surge, he hooked an arm around her waist and rolled over. Blood was pooling in his gut. Still bound by lips, he slid the open shirt away from her front and bared her to him, skin, scars, lace and all. He sat back on his haunches and took in the view. She was propped on her elbows, hair as wild as ever and cheeks flushed, panties soaked with her slick and the first drops of precum he’d rutted against her.

With a grin, he gathered her legs against one of his shoulders and took the waistband of the panties with a firm, needy grip. He wanted them off. _Now._

“Gladio…” she warned, one dark eyebrow raised. He smirked and shook his head.

“I ain’t wreckin’ em, gimme a sec. Hips up,” he prompted with a jut of his chin. She complied. The intact lace was worked along her legs and cast behind him carelessly. Gladio caught sight of the red marks of impact on her knees, the telltale signs of untouched white of the seams between tiles. “Fall for me all over again?”

Rena snorted and shook her head. “Bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

“In that case, I think I broke my ass.”

Both laughed warmly. Gladio pressed sweet kisses to the inside of her knees before legs were spread for him. He shimmied up and heard his own breath shake when his cock met the wet heat of her. Forearms braced against the cold floor, he rutted slowly to coat himself as she worked a bruise into his neck. He nudged her jaw to return the favour. As his lips worked, he focused on hers. They formed a smile that went a little round whenever he bumped her clit. He was throbbing, dripping, he needed her. He wanted to see.

Gladio forced himself to fight bliss and keep his eyes open when he pushed in with one smooth movement, all the way to the hilt. She choked silently on her own breath, eyes wide, before dark lashes fell shut, brows knitted, and lips parted in pleasure. The soft moan pulled his own reply from his throat.

Gladio fell into her, deep thrusts tantrically slow as she squeezed around him and arched. Chest to chest and skin binding to skin, they couldn’t have been closer. Passion seared both of them. It burned away the ropes, the restraints, and let them at each other as if it had been eternity.

The blend of being full and fucked while a rough hand smoothed up her thigh before gripping her waist was enough to break even her curses. Anything that left her mouth was an attempt at the cohesive, and never quite made it. He hooked his arm under her as she found her legs and lifted her hips off the floor. Gladio tugged her onto him with every splitting thrust as low groans, wild and craving, ripped from his throat.

Amber eyes locked with emerald, both made narrow rings by blown pupils as they held their gaze. He growled between swears, reduced to an instinctive mess. Rena could barely get a syllable out, let alone his name. Impromptu passion had thrown them to the floor together, but they were nowhere but each other, eyes locked and hips flush as both pulsed, throbbed and ground to reach nirvana. Neither had the words to tell each other they were ready; they simply knew.

He’d make her come first if it killed him. He wanted to see it burn through her, force her tense and hard before she settled like ash after a wildfire, voice as hoarse as smoke. The broken moans called him with her. They were throwing themselves over a waterfall, the wild and irreversible cascade, as they bound to each other.

It laced every vein, set them on fire and set them in ice at the same time, burning as it salved and tore them apart together, ripped them from the rest of existence. It was paradise. It came with a squeal, a roar and a final slam of each against the other.

His groans weakened as he rocked with her, held as far as he could go as each spill tugged itself from him. Both were shaking. Hoarse whines left her as aftershocks bit through them both. She loosened her hand around the fist of hair she’d threatened to rip out and stroked the back of his neck, forehead pressed to his temple as they cradled each other. Breathless, shocked and drifting back down from their high together, lips met, then parted as eyes locked again on the other side of heaven.

Rena’s suddenly widened, even as her pupils stayed blown.

“Shit.”

“What?” he croaked. Blood was pounding in his head as his heart raged against his chest, slowing down as the close press of bodies let hers speak with his.

“Do you think they heard that?” She cocked her head in the general direction of the main house. A sinful grin played at Gladio’s mouth.

“They’ll know not to come knockin’.”

She shook her head and laughed. Gladio nudged against her cheek before nestling into her neck, still as deep as he could go while he softened slowly. He let out a moan and spoke.

“ _Ohh..._ you have _no_ idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

“What?” she asked with a honeyed sin to her voice. Gladio could hear the smile. “Fuck me on the kitchen floor?”

“Fuck you on my turf,” he mumbled against her pulse, still catching his breath. She laughed again before she spoke, fingers tracing swirled patterns on his nape as the bloody waves in her gut began to calm.

“Getting territorial, are we?”

Gladio growled and nipped her jaw as he smiled. Another bite to her cheek earned a kiss to his. She trapped his bottom lip between her teeth and winked. Both laughed again, a sound as warm as the ache of fresh bruises and the pulse of satisfaction below.

“This really the first time we’ve had sex at yours?”

“Think so,” he said, nodding as he swallowed thickly.

Rena raised her eyebrows for a moment. “Fuck. Took long enough.”

“You’re tellin’ me… Hold on…” A frown pulled at his brows as he looked at her. Gladio raised on eyebrow in challenge as he continued. “You saying I wasn’t memorable?”

“Eh, a dicking’s a dicking.”

Her deadpan expression held for a second before she snorted a laugh and followed with a chuckle. Gladio shook his head and pressed his forehead to hers.

“That was a good one.”

“Yeah, that was fuckin’ good,” Rena sighed. Satisfied smiles held on both of them before blending in a kiss. She teased a whisper against his lips. “You can do that again.”

“Gimme a couple minutes and you got it,” he assured, tone keen and followed by a restorative sigh.

She patted his shoulder and frowned proudly in jest. “Good man.”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.”

“Oh, _now_ you turn on the charm. I’m on the kitchen floor. Do you have any idea how cold these fuckin’ tiles were?”

“We warmed ‘em up,” countered Gladio. She forced a deadpan expression before snorting a laugh.

“Yeah, well… I’m glad they’re not black, there’s probably a sweat patch on them.”

“We’d be able to see the _mlegh_ though.”

Rena frowned. “ _Mlegh?”_

“Y’know, the-,” he tried to explain, but his best and clearest option was to thrust weakly. The wet _schlick_ of soaked flesh was enough. Realisation pushed her eyebrows up with its own vocalised announcement.

“Ahh… True.”

“Black tiles. Very practical.”

“For serial floor fuckers, yeah.”

“You’re not gonna let that go, are you?”

“You nearly broke your ass getting me down here, you know that?”

Gladio smiled proudly. “And I’d do it again.”

She shook her head with an incredulous smile and a scoffed laugh.

“Here’s me thinking _you’re_ the romantic one.”

“That _was_ romantic!” he argued through a grin, his voice going high enough to be lost when he emphasized. “If you had a problem with it, why didn’t you say?”

“I didn’t want to ruin your moment.”

“Ruining it now- _mmppff!”_

Rena caught him in a kiss, lips sweet and creamy against each other in momentary bliss. The raw gentleness of post-coital company was one that made him easier to settle. Gladio fell into the kiss, lips capturing hers as the saccharin wrapped his soul in petals and silk, the softer elements he deserved.

When lips parted they felt just a little bit broken by it, like every time.

“Shh.”

The longing frown that had pinched his brows loosened as the smallest and warmest of smiles graced his features. Dark lashes parted. Eyes as soft and harmless as fresh earth met the forest. His voice was barely a flame, but it was so warm.

“It’s you and me, isn’t it?”

Rena took a moment before she nodded and cupped his cheek.

“Yeah… Yeah, I think it might be.”


	18. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring of M.E. 756 has arrived and with it, Gladio's birthday. Rena has one too many scores to settle from his habit of giving her gifts, and sets out to give him a birthday he'll never forget.

“So, still as good as last year?”

“Pretty damn delicious.”

“I’ll say! You ate enough for, like, three people!”

“Did not.”

“Did too,” she countered brightly. Iris turned to walk backwards and faced them. She squared her jaw, narrowed her eyes and frowned heavily in a mockery of her brother. “ _So good. Must. Eat. Food. Wanna be shredded. Gotta stay in shape. But NOODLES.”_

“Get lost,” he raised an eyebrow, ruffling her hair into short, thick chaos.

Iris dodged her brother’s attack and flitted to the front of the group. She set right the skirt of the cherry blossom pink tea dress and its pattern of ditsy roses no larger than apple seeds. It went oddly well with her usual black choker and a pair of black combat boots.

“Behave,” Clarus sighed heavily.

Dressed in black trousers and a white shirt, he was every inch the patriarch. He turned to his side and offered a peppermint to Talcott as he sat on Gladio’s shoulders, somewhat uncomfortable after the meal.

“Ought to settle your stomach.”

“Better not puke on me, kid.”

Gladio swept his eyes across the street, a routine process as natural as drawing breath after so many years. Talcott had folded his arms on top of Gladio’s head and rested his chin on them. He was a pale addition to the man’s outfit. Whilst Gladio was dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt, with the top few buttons undone to show highest pair of freckles on his chest and sleeves rolled to the elbow, Talcott wore grey shorts and a sky blue shirt with short sleeves.

“I’ll try, sir.”

“And stop calling me ‘sir’,” Gladio pleaded as they turned a corner.

The spring sunset met them golden and warm. In the west end of the city centre, restaurants were bustling with the evening patrons, everything from lone diners to couples to parties that took up half of their seating. Almost all of them had some outdoor chairs and tables, either wrought iron or teak, and hanging baskets that poured petunias and ivy, heady scent floating like spray from a waterfall. The group of five walked through the end of town defined by smooth cobbles, brass stanchions and heavy black velvet ropes, under a soft blue sky dotted with dove clouds.

“O-okay, si-  I mean, Gladio?”

“Better.”

“He’s young for those manners, Jared,” Clarus said, as he continued to pass out mints. “Especially in this day and age.”

“Learns as much as he can and has a penchant for history, I suppose, sir.” Jared smoothed his moustache and smiled with a twinkle in eyes as wise as the sky.

Gladio cracked a wider smile and squeezed Talcott’s ankle gently. “In that case… Got a couple books you might wanna read. You up for it?”

“I- uh- yeah! Yeah!” The simple excitement of childhood had the belt of etiquette and manners tightened sharply. “That’d be great! Thank you, si-.”

“Don’t.”

“Yeah, just call him Gladdy instead,” Iris shrugged, already grinning as her brother deadpanned.

An uncertain frown came over Talcott’s soft features. The ashy brown fringe flopped when he leant forwards to look at his steed. Amber eyes that had always distracted from a perfectly imposing presence looked up from under dark lashes and thick brows.

“Can-?”

“No.”

“Actually, I was kinda wonderin’ if you could put me down? Please?”

Gladio’s eyebrows pinched, and almost made Talcott regret his question. The careful tone taken when he spoke made the boy less nervous.

“You gonna be sick?”

Cheeks round and lightly freckled, his tone was still peachy. There was no sheen of sweat or wobbling lip. Still… the kid had packed away a full bowl of ramen _and_ a slice of chocolate cake the size of his head.

Talcott’s eyes darted around as he swallowed. He trusted the shoulders beneath him. There had been countless occasions he’d been plucked from the high branches of trees, the tops of fences, pools, ponds, even quicksand once, by the quick thinking and natural brotherliness of Gladiolus Amicitia. Once a nervous child himself, he wasn’t one to leave someone in distress.

He leant down and whispered in confidence.

“No, just… I… I have a wedgie.”

Gladio’s eyebrows, expressive as ever, rose from their frown as brown eyes widened. They settled back down quickly as he nodded with a pressed-lipped smile.

“Gotcha.”

He put his hands under Talcott’s arms and began to lift him off.

“Basket,” Iris chirped.

Once he was clear of a swathe of fuchsia, he bowed his head to pick Talcott up and place him on the ground. He steered the boy in front of him and offered some privacy as he sorted his pants discreetly, then turned to crane up at him.

“Thanks!” he grinned, somewhat relieved.

“You got it, buddy,” he said, a large hand completely covering Talcott’s shoulder as he shook him gently. Once the hand had retreated to his pocket, like the other on its own side, Gladio gave a bright smile before Talcott returned his own cheesier version and began to flit about the group.

“Terribly sorry to interrupt,” said a smooth tone.

The natural guarding nature never truly left them. Even as they continued to walk in a loose pack, they instinctively stationed themselves around Talcott and Jared and made down the street at the same pace. Iris took the front, Clarus and Gladio took either rear flank to form a triangle; the best they could do with low numbers.

Ignis’ presence was familiar enough for formation to break. Perfectly suave in storm grey trousers, well-pressed as always, a shirt with lavender vertical stripes and the counterpart blazer held on a finger at his shoulder, he personified the silver lining. Slender legs kept up with Gladio. Dark brows gathered together as he narrowed his eyes over a suppressed smile.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said evenly as he readjusted his glasses with a casual air.

“Nice try, Iggy… Iris!”

“Damn it!”

“Language,” Clarus warned. Forget-me-not blues shifted from the back of his daughter’s head to meet the amused smirk of his son. Gladio toned it down with a playful roll of his eyes before turning back to his friend.

“I still don’t get how she persuades you to do all this _shi_ -crap for her.”

“Iris is a fellow pastry connoisseur and my trusted taste-tester.”

“Everyone’s your taste tester.”

“…My _most_ trusted taste-tester, then.”

“What’s the plan, Iggy?” Gladio sighed, one eyebrow raised as if he already knew what was coming.

He said the same thing every year.

_Nothing big. Nothing fancy._

His family and friend’s blatant refusal of that concept, and their differing definitions of ‘big’ and ‘fancy’ had led to some very long, very eventful, very memorable birthdays over the years. Waking up on the roof of Cor’s downtown bungalow was yet to be explained. It was a mercy that the Marshall spent so little time there. Gladio was able to both put his foot through the porch when he swung down from the roof _and_ have it fixed. Cor never found out, to his knowledge.

Cor Leonis had a discreet security camera on his door, hidden in a knot of the wood, that had recorded the entire thing. He still laughed about it.

“Oh, just some shenanigans. Simple things, really. The classic celebration, one could say.”

Gladio deadpanned.

“Uh-huh. Sure. Am I gonna end up in the shark tank at the aquarium again?”

“Unlikely.”

“So maybe?”

Jade eyes showed false irritation before they warmed with all the lush fun befitting a man his age. They rounded yet another corner and slipped into the multi-storey carpark. Once on the level they’d stowed the cars on, they made towards the vehicles in the cool concrete hive. His father’s estate, obsidian black, waxed and without a scratch, was parked next to his small black jeep. He’d only just gotten his key out of his pocket when a clamour came.

There was a blur of black and blond. A bright flash. Party horns blared and echoed around the cavernous space, bouncing against hard walls and floors. Gladio jolted and had his hand in the armiger before he’d even blinked.

Then came the giggles.

Then cackles.

Prompto and Noctis slid down the sides of the cars they’d hidden between, breathless and sinking as they turned pink. The startled expression had been priceless and captured on Prompto’s camera. Just as he began to breathe again, he looked at the picture and fell into another fit of laughter.

Gladio frowned deeply. The expression gave way to a broad grin he couldn’t suppress. When a deep chuckle and musical giggles blended with snorts came from behind him, he turned over his shoulder. Iris clutched her side with one arm and held onto Clarus’ shoulder with the other.

Heart still hammering as effervescent adrenaline to settle, Gladio sighed raggedly and turned to Ignis. His throat shook before he cleared it, coughed delicately into a gloved fist and held up a hand in apology.

“Alright, what are we doing this time?”

“Wait and see. You’re gonna like this one,” Noctis said, faint brows gathered under his fringe as he nodded sagely.

Gladio leant his head back to face the ceiling, a wide smile still fixed on his face. “You say that every year.”

“And we’ve yet to disappoint,” reasoned Ignis.

“C’mon dude, it’ll be fun!”

“You barf in my backseat again, you’re cleanin’ it, Blondie.”

“Roger that, now let’s go!”

Prompto bounced towards the trio, hooked an arm around Gladio’s neck to tug him down and quickly snapped a photograph of them all, in one smooth movement.

* * *

He dropped himself onto the sofa with a huff. He reached blindly for the coffee table and found the smooth edge he was looking for. Once he’d gripped it to his satisfaction, Gladio moved the plate to his chest and picked up the fork. The simple special awareness of years spent in his own body, even as it changed, allowed him to feed himself, even as he let his eyes fall shut.

They needed rest. The perfectly innocent dinner at the first ramen shop he’d ever known and since made a tradition had been followed by more frantic activities. Lights had flashed in pulsing colours. After making their way to the roof of a club, in which he hadn’t had a drop, the dim evening light, deep blue across sweeping across to the lighter blushed apricot of the sunset, had been interrupted by a huge neon sign. Thankfully, it was for the club.

What lay beyond had been surprisingly tame; mini golf. The punchline? They’d given Gladio full size clubs and themselves miniatures to ‘even the odds’. Of course, it’d come with a catch. Each time they got a ball in the hole, they’d take a shot. Bound by duty, he’d stayed sober the entire night and instead gotten familiar enough with Prompto’s camera to load it up with enough blackmail material on the three of them for a lifetime. He’d also switched the memory card for a fresh one. Sobriety was a weapon.

He’d dropped them off one by one, dragged each limp companion to their apartments and left them with glasses of water and a dose of painkillers before leaving the rest out of their reach and in locations he’d text them in the morning. He’d left basins, buckets, and an exquisite wide-necked vase by bedsides. He’d locked their doors and put the keys back in through small gaps or handed them in to the complex security with a brief explanation.

Then he’d come home and showered to scrub the scents of other people’s drinks, aftershave and sweat from his skin. He’d had enough water to stave off his headache. Now, with the sofa at his back, comfortable in basketball shorts, a mouth full of chocolate cake and a new book to busy himself with, Gladio breathed a sigh.

He’d just pried his eyes open to spear his next morsel of the moist, bitter chocolate sponge, when a blue light cast itself about the room. One eyebrow raised. His limbs weren’t as heavy for a moment. As he took a deep breath, Gladio reached up behind himself and plucked his phone from the nest table at the end of the sofa. He pressed the button and the screen lit up again. He forced his eyes open and squinted at the message.

_Better not have your key in the door again._

A smile turned into a yawn, that turned into a sleepier rendition. Gladio tried to keep himself awake with the new book as it poured prose like railway tracks across snow. Even the sugar from the cake couldn’t help. He fought the velvet loss of consciousness, but he also lost.

The brightness roused him again.

_You’ll never fucking guess._

“Ah, shit,” he croaked.

Gladio put the plate and what little remained of the slice on the table, alongside the book that had collapsed on his chest and his phone. He sat up with a light grunt before shaking the fizzy blackness from his head and standing. One hand rubbed his eyes while the other hung loose, eventually reaching for the door as he padded nearer. The key turned with a switching note before he pulled the door open.

He was a sight.

Shorts slung low about his hips, wiggling his toes to get some of the sensation sleep had robbed back, chocolate smeared at one corner of his mouth, eyes blinking further open each time and hair mussed. He drew taut as another yawn pulled from him and settled into a smile.

She snorted.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he said, hands already reaching for her.

The cool air of the night had wrapped around her. She passed it to him, let it wake him up, as arms slung about his neck and fingers played in his hair. Noses met before lips, already curled into smiles. They kissed slow, sweet and chaste. It was like chocolate, and he tasted like it too.

Still bound, Gladio stepped back into the annexe and shut the door behind them. The kissed invitation had been accepted. One large hand buried in her hair, while the other had snuck between her and her rucksack and pressed flat to her back, holding her flush to him. Rena could feel the deep breath he took before he sighed in the binding bliss of joined lips.

His eyes stayed closed even when they parted, and smiles grew.

“Happy birthday,” she whispered. Gladio hummed in response. “Good day?”

“Yeah, it was pretty good,” he said, forehead pressed to hers as they held gently.

“Good.”

“How was work?” asked Gladio.

He leant back and saw her with more alert eyes than before. Some of her hair was still drying. All of it was soft and thick with the scent of honey as fresh curls formed and played between his fingers. Deep green watched him around almost drowsy pupils. He could smell coffee. Rena nodded and sighed her answer.

“Long. Got a lot done though.”

“You had something to eat?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn,” he grumbled. At her raised brow, he offered his explanation with an almost worried frown. “Got a _lot_ of cake left.”

“Breakfast?” she asked, as though it were perfectly obvious. Gladio shook his head.

“Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks…” he trailed. He nuzzled against her nose before being soothed by a kiss. “I’m gonna be sick of chocolate.”

“You? Sick of chocolate? I don’t fuckin’ think so.”

“C’mon,” he said.

He pressed another sweet kiss, kept them joined at the hands and led her further into the annexe. The brass retro lamps were poised about the room and poured soft light over the smooth plaster. It was a shade that gave his summer colours back; a pre-emptive glimpse of his warmest tones. He picked up his plate and made for the kitchen. Rena stopped at the dining table and swung her rucksack onto one of the chairs.

“Want a drink?” he called, ducking his head from the cupboard that held glasses and mugs.

“Just water, please.”

“You got it.”

Gladio ran the tap until a quick blow of breath made the metal cloud. He filled two glasses, turned away from the sink and made his way towards the dining room. Settled eyes looked up from the slightly overfull glasses that required careful balancing and locked on the table. A few packages had appeared, neatly stacked and well-wrapped in thick paper, some printed with old maps and others a mockery of newspaper print.

He set the glasses down on the table and met her watchful gaze. She rolled her eyes and shook her head with a smile.

“You’re spoiling me,” he quoted, cocking his head as he did.

Rena’s eyes snapped back to his with a bright spark. “You haven’t even opened them yet. They might be shit. I could’ve just wrapped empty boxes, for all you know.”

“You wrapped them pretty good,” he said, turning the smallest over in his hand. He tapped on the paper and raised a brow. “Can I?”

“Well, yeah! You’re only the _birthday boy,”_ she said with mock enthusiasm and peeked at her phone. “For another half hour, so get ripping.”

“You know what? Just for that, I’m gonna take it slow.”

She shook her head and leant her hip against the table, arms crossed to stop her hands from taking up their endless fidgeting games. Gladio carefully pulled the taped down edges, though there were only three, and unfolded the paper carefully to reveal the first. His eyes widened as he grinned.

“Is that a-?”

“First Henruit? Fuckin’ is.”

Gladio opened the old leatherbound book and ran his fingertips over pages warped by age.

“Where the _hell_ did you find it?”

“Finders keepers,” she said, head cocked and eyes closed in quiet discretion. He shook his head with an unbreakable smile and flicked through the pages with a delicate tough befitting a book graced by age. “And look.”

Gladio passed her the book carefully. She held the spine to her front and fanned the pages until a picture formed on the fore-edge. It was a hidden painting, usually held invisible but revealed when one knew its secrets. Gladio recognised the scene immediately. The hero, though they’d deny it, trekking through silver birches and their black markings during a galestorm, their red cape half-ripped, when the worst was yet to come.

“Holy shit.”

“Yup. You know that book I gave you last year? The first one?”

He nodded and smiled at the warm memory of the first time he’d kissed her cheek, when panic and apologies had choked them both. How far they’d come.

“His muse,” Gladio whispered, breath stolen as he looked straight at her.

“Turns out, the guy was an artist too,” she nodded. “Painted the copy he kept after Henruit died.”

Lovers annotations were held secrets. His eyes fell to the pearl and vine as it hung delicately from her neck, as if it had always been there. Gladio locked on her and shook his head before he stepped to her side of the table, buried a hand in her hair and pressed a kiss to her cheek, just to feel her smile.

“You’re not done, c’mon,” she coaxed, pushing her shoulder against his side gently.

He breathed a sigh and put the book down on the table, fingers passing over it in a subtle stroke before reaching for the next package. Slightly larger, still book shaped. With a hand rested on her waist, Rena held the paper down for him to ease the tape off and unwrap the present.

Another book, no title or author, bound in leather bearing a blush of patina.

“You read that many books,” Rena said, hushed and smooth. Gladio’s brows gathered over a warm smile as he opened the cover to find blank pages, thick and pale as cream. “I thought it was time you wrote something of your own. Scribbles, shopping lists, it’s up to you but it’s there if you want it.”

He met her with that look again. He was perfectly understood, allowed to breathe and made to smile. Gladio swept down to meet her in a deep, slow kiss. He’d already said it without words, but it needed voiced.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, you haven’t seen your noodle stash at my place.”

“You didn’t,” he said, leaning back enough to watch her as she shrugged coyly.

A satisfied look came over her as she enunciated the word to exaggerate. “Replenished.”

Gladio shook his head and leant his temple against hers as they worked to open the last box. Flatter, but around the same size as the others. Once the paper opened around it like blossom, the unmarked black box held mystery. He cocked his brow at her as Rena watched him.

“Hope it fits.”

The range of things that could’ve been stowed inside that small box limited greatly when given the criteria of being worn was added, mainly to lewder items, which would explain the discreet box. He pulled the lid off as he squeezed her to his side.

“No way...”

“Way. Getting sick of your bitching, so I thought it’d take matters into my own hands.”

It was black. Leather. Small metal studs ran across part of it. She pulled the glove from the box and held it ready for him. Gladio twisted his wrist once more, let the bones crack through the warm ache he’d become used to, before slipping into the brace. It looped around his thumb to stay in position, left most of hand bare and reinforced his wrist. The fit was snug but allowed all the movement he needed. He flexed his hand, fully spanned his fingers, then formed a fist that made the leather creak and shift with him.

“How? Just, how the hell?”

“Took your measurements while you were asleep, got hold of some leather and sewed it up. Harder than a belt, I’ll tell you that much. You’re… not getting to see the first two. You’re gonna need to wear it in, make the leather mould.”

Gladio shook his head with an incredulous grin and met her for another kiss, hands cupping her cheeks as the leather warmed to his skin and hers. The kiss parted for smiles as he looped his arms around her back and they leant into each other. Settled at last, Gladio was drawn taut by a yawn.

“Oh, don’t. For fuck’s-,” she began, interrupted by the contagious yawn. He pressed a kiss to her hair and swayed from side to side.

“You stayin’ over?”

“I’ll need to leave early, dogs’ll need out,” she murmured into his chest. She could feel his smile against her head.

“Bed?”

“Bed. I’m done for today.”

“Same again tomorrow?” he asked, hand moved up to hold her shoulder as he kissed her temple.

Rena nodded. He made a grumble of pity in his throat and reached down to take her hands. Fingers twined at home. When his eyes opened from the bliss of closeness, he noticed something. One of the lights at the main house was on.

“Bathroom’s yours. I’m gonna go say goodnight, alright?”

“Mhm.”

After a quick kiss, Gladio slipped out the patio doors and made for the main house. He’d just made it up the steps of the porch when the light switched off. He snuck in through the door to the kitchen anyway. He’d only just opened it when he was met with the quiet sight of Jared as he shucked on his jacket and hobbled over to the form at the table. Talcott’s arms were folded under his head as he slept, features soft and tired. Twinkling black eyes caught another person he often forgot wasn’t a boy anymore.

“Oh, good evening Gladiolus. A little late, is everything alright?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it’s great. I’ll give you a hand.”

The child barely stirred when Gladio picked him up and held him with one arm, while he opened doors for Jared. With them both safely packed into the car, Gladio patted the roof gently, waved them off and turned to head back to the annexe.

He cleared the paper from the table, folding it roughly before putting it in the bin, and stacked the used plate and fork into the dishwasher. He timed the washing machine to finish in the morning, refilled the glasses of water and left them on the bedside tables, the small brass lamps with cream ceramic shades glowing softly. He got all the way to picking up his phone charger before he stopped, patted his pockets and sighed at the wall. He went back to the sofa, picked up his phone and scrolled through the various messages, emails and notifications. Gladio turned to leave the living room and stopped before he’d even taken a step.

She was standing there. Hair loose and wild as it fell over one shoulder more than the other. The pearl and silver gleamed against the soft glow of her skin. Contrast came in the form of black lace. It clung and shifted with every curve he dragged his eyes over, as though for once night had shrouded the moon in its delicate cloak. The basque was exquisitely fitted and led over lines he knew well; the soft swell of her breasts, the dip of a waist he called home and the spread of her hips as they templed a far more intimate area, hidden away by yet more lace, and guided down over suspenders and stockinged legs as one crossed over the other.

Rena played with her hands casually, twisted her fingers and traced the lines of her palms. A demure nature she only ever showed around him kept her eyes trained on her hands as cheeks blushed pale pink. On a rare flick up from the floor, the bedroom eyes of innocent sin caught him in his daze.

There was something very satisfying about a doe-eyed, open-mouthed Gladio.

Amber eyes met hers as he swallowed thickly.

She gently huffed a laugh through her nose and turned to fade into the dark of the hallway.

He shook his head, almost dropped his phone trying to get it into his pocket and stubbed his toe on the sofa as he followed. Gladio caught up with her in the hallway and took her hips in his hands.

“Don’t get this wrong, I bought these because I liked them. This is just an excuse to wear them,” she teased. Gladio’s lips were already on her shoulder, her hips playing between his hands as she walked the rest of the way to the bedroom. “But, it’s technically a birthday present.”

“Happy birthday to me,” he rasped, teeth nipping at the juncture between neck and shoulder.

Greedy hands took everything they could get when she turned around and slung her arms around his neck, hair tugged to bring him down for a searing kiss. Whatever tiredness had threatened them was forgotten on favour of excitement for the game ahead. They wanted to play. Gladio ran his fingers underneath the suspender straps and traced upwards to squeeze her ass. An experimental tug to the back of the thong earned him a hitched breath.

“You have no idea how hard it was to find extra long stockings,” she murmured between kisses.

“Oh yeah? Where’d you find ‘em? I’ll get you more.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’d only rip them.”

“You’d let me.”

Gladio whispered hotly between kisses, each word a burning coal in the cascade. He slipped his hands behind her thighs, ducked down for a moment and picked her up. She still tensed when he did that, wary of being parted from the ground. He was solid between her legs, in more ways than one, as she wrapped around him, fingers twisting in his hair to tug it. The sway of him as he walked was enough for her teeth to trap his bottom lip.

The sheets met his knees. Still holding her to him, he knelt on the bed and moved them both to the centre. All hands were hungry. He squeezed hard enough to force the pattern of the lace into her skin. Her own smoothed over him, slid his shorts over his hips and busied herself with his cock. The kiss broke apart with her grin and his rough sigh when she found it hard and already beading with the first drop of precum for the night.

Gladio retaliated. His hand dove down and cupped her. Long, smooth strokes through soaked lace were enough to part lips and have them bitten. A small whine left her when he took his hands from her and set her down on the bed.

The sound of ripping lace as it tore through the quiet was the gun to racing dogs, the composers tempo tapped before a more sinful orchestra would swell.

He held up the ruined thong victoriously. “I’m keeping this one.”

“Trophy, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” he nodded, eyes aflame as he forced another wine bruise into her neck.

Callouses, papercuts and teasingly slow touches smoothed up her inner thigh before drawing slick across her own sex. He was playing and came that much closer to winning with every brushstroke of his fingertip that came near her clit. He left the new bruise alone and smouldered at her.

“So what exactly _is_ my present?”

A voice of honeyed sin, smooth as silk and captivatingly quiet gave him his answer.

“Anything you want.”

Gladio allowed himself a carnal smile before meeting her in another bruising kiss.

“In that case,” he began. Two fingers pressed against her entrance as an enticing threat. His lips pressed contrastingly sweet kisses along the length of her clavicle. “I want you to forget the whole damn world.”

“How am I supposed to do that when it’s right in front of me?”

Gladio stopped, breath stolen once again. He shifted his weight to the forearm above her head and locked eyes with her. The question had been so honestly spoken, and so gently, as fingers had caressed the nape of his neck and her other hand had twined with his. He answered with a warm smile, momentarily distracted from their more sinful situation.

“That’s my line,” he said, leaning down to nuzzle against her nose. Lace was soft, after all.

“Sorry,” whispered Rena. Lips brushed and pulled into smile. “Beat you to it.”

Gladio met her in a kiss that held the same heat as summer evenings, dark and lusty under the threat of thunder. It was a kiss of pomegranates and warm pavements, of spitting rain and magnolia blossoms.

It was almost enough to distract her from the fingers that pushed into plush heat that only moved to squeeze around them and beg them deeper. Gladio swallowed her first moan with a growl before he left her mouth open to sing for him and traced his own to her pulse.

“Ahh, fuck yes… Shit, I almost forgot. Got another present for you.”

“Mhm?” he hummed, dragging his open mouth across her chest to take nips and soft mouthfuls of her breasts as he bared them slowly.

“We’re- _fuck…_ We’re going camping next weekend,” she said breathlessly as Gladio curled his fingers. When they stopped moving, she let out a whine and met wide amber eyes.

“No way.”

Rena sighed and resigned herself to the momentary stillness. “Yeah.”

“How the hell did you do that?” he asked, brows gathered in an incredulous frown. She swallowed and answered, hips moving of their own accord to give her some stimulation.

“Prom’s gonna stay with Noct and take the dogs with him. Iggy’s gonna check in regularly. There’ll be a couple guards _and_ a pair of glaives watching his building the whole time.”

“Holy shit…” he breathed. A wide smile spread on her face, delighted by his reaction.

“Mhm,” she nodded and met him for a kiss that gave all the thanks he could barely articulate in a messed mind. Even once parted, he searched for questions, answers, reasons, his mind already running through packing lists. That would depend on location.

“We-…” he began, before shaking his head. “Where we going?”

“Ah. That’s a surprise,” she said chastely. He remembered himself, grinned sinfully and added a third finger that made her mouth go round.

“Thought you didn’t like surprises,” he said with gravel and heat. A smile formed briefly before a sigh stole it away.

“I don’t, that’s why- _sweet fuckin’_ \- I’m driving.”

Gladio snorted a laugh against her chest. “Should I write my will before we go?”

Rena smiled and shook her head. “Nah, just make sure your health insurance’s up to date.”

“Done and done.”

His ministrations made her ache. What the underwear had set, his reaction had sparked, and his touches now nursed as a flame threw heat into her cheeks. Gladio grinned at the sight and changed his strokes to long, all the way out before all the way back in. On one of these, he ventured a little lower and teased soaked fingers against the tight ring of muscle that came with a threat.

“I’ll kill you.”

“You got it,” he cocked his head and resumed.

 Soaked fingers clustered around her rosebud made it hard to breathe, let alone speak. The large hand that held hers gathered her wrists and pinned them above her head. The eager grin made him growl cravingly. On a sigh, she surprised him.

“You might as well die happy.”

Gladio stopped immediately. He looked up at her with careful sincerity.

“You… sure about that?”

Rena didn’t hesitate. Her decision was already made.

“Fuck it, why not?” she said.

“You seriously-?”

“Yes, now just fucking- _ngghh…”_

He broke her resolve as one fingertip, soaked and slick, pressed against her ass. Lips dragging against her skin, he shook his head with a grin.

“I owe you.”

“I know,” she nodded. Her teeth gritted with a quiet squeal when he pushed past and eased the single digit in. “Play nice.”

* * *

His chest was heaving. Sweat polished him as the fire cast him in the burning hues that suited him so well and set narrow chestnut rings into inferno. Mouth open and flat against the haven stone as he panted, he tried to swallow when hands ran back up over his torso before she propped herself over him. Gladio blinked at her and let out a weak whimper.

“Hhhh…”

Kiss-swollen lips, reddened by more skilful sins, formed a lascivious grin. Rena’s tongue subtly circled the point of her upper canine and Gladio could feel it grazing along his cock all over again, so vividly it made him twitch. Hair wild from his fist, she wiped her chin on her wrist. He reached up to thumb a sticky droplet from the corner of her mouth.

“M…Messy girl.”

Eyebrows raised and almost mocked him.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, little more than a hoarse bleat. After a moment, he frowned. “Where the _hell_ did you learn to do that?”

Rena cocked her head and licked at the other corner of her mouth. Thought swallowed, his release was still coating her tongue. It wasn’t so much bitter as savoury. Much thicker than she’d thought, and more of it.

“Eh, basic anatomy, imagination, observation and stubbornness.”

“Huh.”

The sound left Gladio far too high for it to seem to belong to him. She’d sucked it straight out of him, pinned his hips to keep him from bucking and swallowed while his cock had pressed at her throat, all while he’d fisted a hand in her hair and sworn at a sky full of stars.

Now she was propped up over him and watching him gather his mind.

“Was it alright?”

His quivering lip took up action. “Was it…? You mighta sucked some of my soul out.”

“Hope there’s some left,” she said smoothly.

Gladio’s breath hissed when her hand wrapped around the soaked shaft of his cock. Still hard, still throbbing and with the delicious sensitivity afforded by the static sensation of an orgasm, a few strokes pulled a crackling groan from him. Gladio ripped himself from the bliss and met her with burning eyes.

“Get on it.”

The growled demand ended with a wolfish grin. He buried his hands in her hair as they met for a kiss, lips searing and salved by the fresh memory glossing hers. Tongues and teeth played as both tastes, his and hers, blended in mouths. They moaned at the combination as she straddled him, pressed her sex to his stomach and trailed a wet line down to the cock that twitched at her whim.

Rena tore away and rose up from him, just enough to reach down and guide his length against her. Gladio gritted his teeth at the slick contact. His hands pushed at her hips and equally pulled as he grasped her, blunt fingertips digging into flesh with bruising force. His breath caught when she held the very tip of him to her entrance and let them kiss.

Both pairs of swollen lips parted and held open, round and quivering, when she sank down. The immediate squeeze of her pulled a few pants from his mouth.

She was a divine sin. Dark and light, her contrasts illuminated by a blazing fire to her side and made ethereal by the backdrop of stars. Cosmic velvet cushioned her against the rest of existence as Gladio burned against the stone. Each shadow thrown, scar lengthened, and fire thrown into her eyes was one that forged her edge, sharpened her until she could’ve cut him. The glowing marks of the oracle were cast onto her skin in blue runes that spelled older power. She was wild.

His torso flexed under her hands as she braced herself and the rolling hips pursued oblivion with a fever. Nails scratched whenever he bumped against her limits as walls dragged, moans were held in symphonic balance and an entire spectrum burst into their eyes, new and sparking. Curses and damnations, given as prayers, fell apart for inanities; the cries of need, of hunger and cravings.

Gladio surged up, hands bound for her hair.

His shoulders met the stone again, pushed down and held there.

There was a savage dare in her eyes. It was carnal. Selfish. Starved. As though she’d kill him for disobeying, for moving too quickly and against her iron will. It pinned Gladio to the stone and held greater power over him. It fed a craving he didn’t know he had. Her own wolfish grin pulled at her features, half hidden by dark curls, as she shook her head. Gladio returned a sinful smile with aurous eyes.

She was there, taking him as deep as possible and tearing herself apart on him. Each pulse of blood through her veins made her glow brighter. Rena would finish him if it killed her. This was sex and a battlefield. There were no walls to cage their cries, nothing to bounce them back. They were limitless, bursting into supernova with each taste of the high reserved for astral beings.

Gladio’s hands fixed on her hips, following each and every desperate pace that clawed her closer to release. She was using him to feed her own selfish creature. He loved it. Each time her nails dug into his chest, he felt himself fray a little more.

The drunken grin fell apart into a keen when he shifted his hand to swipe circles over her clit. An idea struck him as she chased her high, bruised and blossoming above him. Each line of her led up to the heavens. In a tease that made him throb within her, he began to spell out his name in cursive, pledging the rosebud with his mark.

For all her fury, she was glorious. Wild temptation that hunted down release to feel it bleed into her. Even as their sight warped, dragged by the blurring hand of rut and need, they locked on each other. Held at arm’s length and more, forest still took root in earth and was reinforced by it. For every ounce of fire in his eyes, he may as well have been Ravatogh incarnate.

Gladio was Eos itself, the burning core, rock and steadfast stone. Rena was every forest, every mountain, every river and sea that defined the surface, took what he could give and gave it back. Bound and wrapped to each other, they were cast through the cosmos on the whip-end of orbit around a burning star.

As though they’d agreed on it, her hand joined with his, fingers intertwined as the other wrote declarations, prayers and offerings on the altar of a sensitive bundle of nerves. Blinding pleasure threatened them both with every groan and purr.

It was pooling in his gut, as though the molten gold in his veins flooded to an outlet and shifted to show lustre as a threatening release, ready to tear from him. One glimpse over her confirmed it; she was there. One tip and she’d be gone, thrown into the cosmos in ecstatic abandon. In a moment of clarity, his groan lengthened into a warning.

“Rena, I’m-.”

She nodded quickly.

Hips bucked against each other, desperate to chase down that high and tear it apart. The simultaneous oblivion came with heads thrown back and final moans echoing into the night as inane prayers cried to the sky, the heavens, the Astrals and more. Her backdrop of stars provided a galaxy that looked as though it plumed from her mouth, the physical embodiment of every husky note that left her in pleasure. The burning bliss laced every fibre until their ears rang and eyes were cast blind.

In what little sense he could gather, Gladio’s begging chant was heard.

“Don’t stop, _fuck_ don’t stop, don’t stop, _please_ …”

Every last drop of him spilled into her in heated velveteen floods. She kept her hips rolling and loosened her nails from his skin. They nursed off their high, bare skin coated with sweat in the mild spring night. The planes of his chest were warm under her hands as they roamed up.

Rena leant forwards, braced her forearms either side of his head and whined desperately against his neck. Gladio’s returned moan pulled her into a kiss as his hands gathered in her hair. She never stopped grinding against him, each stroke of his cock working his release into her while they panted. Gladio swallowed and let his head fall back with a satisfied groan.

She bit and chewed a bruise into his neck, determined to paint him and dark. His pulse raged under his skin, beating frantically as he drifted back down, cock still twitching. After a brief moment of stillness, her hips started again.

“You on a mission or something?” he breathed through a grin. She broke from the fresh, aching mark she’d forced into his skin, passed careful lips and a laving tongue over it in apology and spoke breathlessly.

“I’ve got all weekend. I’m gonna fuckin’ use it.”

Gladio laughed richly, body shaking under her own as she joined him in the blissful revelry. He pulled her down for a deep kiss. Lungs were denied and starved as souls were fed. In a deep hum, he made his move and rolled them over. The keen glint in her eyes spelled more than mischief. This was sin and how they craved it.

She slipped him out and turned onto her front, braced on forearms and knees as Gladio kissed her shoulders. He leant back, hand roaming from her nape to the small of her back. The view was red and ruined. Slick-thighed and angled perfectly, Gladio had only just pushed back into her when he felt something change. Push.

A punishing grip on her ass was enough to draw a whine.

“Messy girl.”

Gladio looked down as he pulled back out, coated with his own release as a thick string of it lingered between them. She’d let it go. His rough groan, given with furrowed brows, was enough to make her bite her lip. He rutted against her and tested the tight ring of muscle with slick pushes. Gladio leant forwards and kept himself pressed against her in promised pain and pleasure.

“How d’you want it?” he asked, voice as hot as the fire at their sides.

She angled herself even more and looked over her shoulder, eyes shining with wild challenge. There would never be enough. The wolfish grin only made her lips irresistible. Gladio met her in a brutal kiss. Her demand was breathless and compelling.

“Make me fuckin’ dizzy.”

Both grinned, and both moaned as he forced himself into her ass, the stretch and burn giving way to an entirely different fullness. Land hands fixed on her hips as she braced and smacked her fist against the stone. Each stroke was yet another step in the loop back to paradise.

Creatures of the night indeed.

* * *

There were birds singing. Small, light sounds. A plethora of melodies that played into each other and formed the choir. They were joined by strings in fresh, rustling leaves as they swayed at the whim of the wind. A stream held them all on a single endless note. He knew it was morning, but time didn’t exist.

Gladio took a deep breath and stretched diagonally across the tent until he heard his back pop, then relaxed into his form like pulled dough. He was the right kind of heavy. Earthy. Sated. Human. Not weighed down by anything other than himself. A tired hand searched the mat to his side. Warm but empty. He pried his eyes open to see a little further; it wasn’t unlike her to get too warm in the middle of the night and shift away, and there was more room in the tent than either of their beds.

Rena wasn’t there, but she wouldn’t be far.

His voice strained slightly as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. The dark green blanket they’d slung about their hips in some exhausted attempt at coverage or shelter was a thick and heavy thing. It almost coaxed him to lie back down, get comfortable again and sleep. He wasn’t tired. That had probably been the best night’s sleep he’d had in years.

Still, duty called.

Blinking slowly, he reached for his phone and pulled it into his lap. He opened the chain of messages between Ignis and himself and began to type.

_Everything okay bac-_

He was interrupted by the buzz and pop of a new message. Ignis had apparently had the same idea.

_First check-in of the apartment today; messy but fine. Noct is still asleep (surprisingly >_>), Prompto let me in and is presently tidying the kitchen. The dogs are despondent but otherwise healthy. Things are fine. Enjoy yourself._

Gladio read the message again. After a moment he shook his head with a scoffed laugh and retyped his message.

_Good to hear. Tell Charmless to get out of his damn pit._

He’d only just put the phone down when it buzzed with another message.

_Threatening him with a bucket of cold water as we speak._

Gladio snorted a laugh, left the phone behind and poked his head out of the tent.

The fire gave a gentle trickle of smoke that bound and danced with the spire of the haven. Just beyond the edge of the stone and its glowing runes, lush grass and the first wildflowers took in the morning sun. Not much further than that, trees, low and round, were thick with this year’s leaves while the white speckles of blossom frosted some. A swathe of birds swept from one tree to the next as a frantic cloud, always rushing even as they took life slowly. Gladio took a deep breath of fresh, clean air, still cool before the day could warm it.

Satisfied, he ducked back in to pull on a pair of shorts before fully leaving the tent and stretching to his full height, fingers twined above his head. Targeted spells of tension let him pop everything that needed set right, while his breath caught in his throat. Then came the real question.

_Where’d she go?_

After plucking an apple from the cooler and holding it in his mouth, Gladio jumped down from the rock and found himself knee-deep in dew drenched grass. The cool tickles of droplets running down his legs only made him feel part of here. This was as far as she could get them from anywhere; a haven she’d passed years ago. Their own world was her gift to him.

The shifting rustle of grass as he walked through it changed to the low continuum of running water. The creek at the edge of the clearing was held in dappled sunlight, water still cool. Gladio’s best chance to find her was to wander around until he crossed her path. After crouching to splash his face and neck, he stood and searched the higher banking that walled him in from the rest of Duscae. After a brief glance to either side, he chose to go with the flow.

There was no ticking clock, no pressure, no expectations. Nothing more than the world immediate. Under that fresh freedom, Gladio ducked under low branches and walked on the smooth stones bared by a warm spring. The creek widened before splitting into streams. He barely thought about it before following whichever one his feet took him to. The stones disappeared for soft ground and short grass, denied light by the trees that had beaten them to it.

The streams gave way to wider water, fresh and level as it lapped at a pebbled shore. Trees lined the small lake. Hidden in dappled shade, he took a few moments to simply exist. He was about to get up when something was thrown over his head.

Warm laughter gave her away before he’d swiped the leggings from his head. Gladio fixed on her with a frown that mocked irritation. Against a smile like hers, it was a hard expression to maintain. Rena was already knee deep in the water and backing into the lake.

“Morning,” she said.

Fresh bruises coated her in shades far more violent than their origins. Hair wild and skin softly pale in the shade, the green of her eyes already had Duscae beaten, in his opinion. Before the water could creep past her mid-thigh, she pulled off her underwear and threw them at Gladio. He snatched them out of the air and grinned.

“Mornin’”

“Come on,” she coaxed as she pulled the black cami over her head, balled it up and threw it onto the shore. The water was at her hips. “You stink.”

“Do not,” he frowned, arms folded across his chest.

“You do. You smell like a sweaty ballsack.”

“Says the one with a mess between her legs.”

“You put it there.”

“I _helped,”_ he pouted.

One raised eyebrow was enough to break his already weak argument. Gladio heaved a false sigh and stepped out of his shorts. The water was soothing, at first. Cool and soft as a cat come in from the cold, passing against his legs. Rena was already up to her waist and still faced him. Gladio’s smile was stolen for a rounder mouth when the water reached his upper thighs. His wide eyes and hissed breath were enough to pull a laugh from her.

Hands reached for and twined with his. She led him back until the lake wrapped them both in freefall and water as smooth as glass. Rena’s eyes widened slightly as she dipped lower.

“You okay?” he asked through a smile.

“You know how to swim right?”

“…Yeah.”

“Good.”

Gladio was pulled forwards until water soaked his chest. Rena drifted back into the water and took to it. She stayed suspiciously still, treading water and watching him with eyes that spelled mischief and innocent fun. He beat her to it.

Gladio swept an armful of water at her. Soaked curls covered her face.

“You fuckin’…”

“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it?”

She used both arms and drenched him. Bright grins shone as water splashed white and caught the morning sun.  Retaliation was met by yet more retaliation until both were up to their shoulders in the lake and dripping. Gladio wiped the water from his face with one brief swipe of his hand. One he opened his eyes again, he was alone.

No bubbles came to the surface. Suddenly every plant that reached up for his feet was a hand trying to drag him down. There were bigger threats in these waters. More immediate. Gladio kept treading water and waited for her to surface. He began to count and started at fifteen.

As pale as she was, the angle he had from the surface blinded him to her.

_Thirty-two...Thirty-three…Thirty-four…_

He tried to concentrate on the movements of the water itself. A sweep or undertow would give her away, but she blended as perfectly into the waves as she did in any other hiding spot.

_Fifty-eight…Fifty-nine…sixty…_

A frown began to gather his brows. There was a weight threatening his stomach, heavy and hanging on a single thread.

_Hundred-and-one…Hundred-and-two…Hundred-and-three…_

Gladio drew a deep breath and readied to dive. It was all but thrown from his lungs when he was grabbed and tugged under the surface. The grip on his wrists shifted to his neck and became cradling as he found the only other thing that mattered in that world.

He knew her blind. The press of a warm body against his own as they tangled in each other and floated in nowhere, eyes shut and weightless. Suffocation was sweet when it came in the form of a kiss that ebbed and flowed with the waves above their heads. Hands buried in hair unbound by gravity as both sank into the feeling of hallowed absence.

Lungs burned but the gentle sensation laced over it. They surged to the surface, still bound, and kept foreheads pressed as they drew deep breaths to save them from a nectarine death. Breathless, speechless and blissfully lost, they let the sun warm them through the water as one realm washed into the next.

Each resisted the urge to playfully drown the other as they loosely washed sweat and sex from their skins. The swim back to shore wasn’t as caging and heavy as it had first seemed. Gravity reminded them of their strength, and the rising warmth of late-morning dried them fast enough. Clothes were pulled on and the pair took to the woods. Peace, quiet and joined hands were a fine imitation of heaven.

The thick fogs of Duscae’s winters give way to get yet more white. First snowdrops, as thick as the true snow, came first, and were later replaced by the blossoms of wild garlic as they burst like ivory fireworks and gave a sweet tang to the air. As they made through the trees, breezes ran their fingers through the branches. Loosened petals fell like snowflakes in a warm parallel of colder times.

Their passing spooked a larger bird from roost. The act of launching jolted a bough and showered them in petals. They were stark and pale in Gladio’s dark, thick locks. A few good shakes of his head removed all but two stragglers. Amber eyes looked to their companion. The storm of newly dry curls blurred before falling over her face when she stopped. A quick puff cleared a few from her eyes. The sheer quantity of blossom caught in her hair drew a warm laugh from him. She began to pick at the ones she could see and looked up at him with bright eyes.

“Give a girl a hand?”

Gladio took a moment before answering with a shaken head. “Nah. Suits you.”

He stood in front of her and plucked a few of his chosen petals out and simply rearranged some others. With no gentler way to stop him, a soft kiss to the cheek was her chosen distraction. The tanned cheek, stubbled and curved as he smiled, was warm against her lips. Familiar.

In every still moment of dappled light and the world softened by it’s thawing, there was a voice that told them to stay there forever. Not to move in case they broke it. To wait for the thin ice to melt and drop them back into reality, however cold.

The lips parted from his cheek but stayed close enough to brush as she whispered.

“Race you.”

“Huh?!”

Rena sprinted away, leaving the echo of a warm laugh in her wake. Each time she threw her legs out in stride, more of the peppery scent of wild garlic was kicked up. The sound of rustling behind her made her run faster, a grin spread as they chased through the trees and pushed against them to move themselves forward and steer.

Each time his steps drew near enough to be felt in the ground, she’d turn, use agility to her advantage and tear through the woods. The rich laugh behind her almost made her want to stop. The trees thinned ahead. Rena had just met the edge of the clearing when a hand grasped her wrist and tumbled to the ground as they fell together.

Laughs were breathless as he pinned her to the ground clumsily, having tripped over and taken her with him. Hearts danced with the thrill of the chase, thumped against their ribs and each other.

“Caught you,” he smiled.

His view was one he’d never expected to be so delicate for all her strength. Dark, thick curls splayed out into the grass. The brighter green was strewn with wildflowers; bluebells, mallow and pale primroses. The hue of her eyes was deeper, but no more menacing than the woods that cradled the clearing and held it in a branched crown. In youth and necessity, she’d tied herself to nature. Sometimes it was hard to remember that nature was capable of such softness.

Fingers played in his hair and at the back of his neck until a smile formed and creased earthen eyes.

“C’mere.”

The soft whisper was always more than enough. Gladio swept down and nudged her until she smiled and blushed. There was no finer rose, in his opinion, than the ones that bloomed in her cheeks. Chapped lips held over her own, close enough to brush and paused, as though he might say something.

Rena had a better way of saying it.

She met him for a kiss that both sighed into, saccharine and innocent, no harsher than petals. Lips slow danced and carefully so, as though they might’ve torn the other. They parted as lashes stayed shut. A soft sincerity was written in gentle frowns and thumbs smoothed over cheeks.

When she finally looked at him, he was something else. Already tanning with each day the sun stayed longer, sooty stubble held to his jaw. His lips were still parted. They trembled ever so slightly his breaths. Thick brows gathered and only made him softer. He was harmless, trusting and gentle, but trained out of it. Thick lashes parted and showed every detail of his soul, written in sunsets and sonnets, leatherbound books and history, petals and poetry. She’d never seen eyes like his, on man nor beast. None had ever said as much as his, no matter how quiet he could be. He was blocking the sky and keeping the void from crushing her, but Rena only saw a heaven she’d never thought was hers to know.

In soft peace, Gladio settled by her side. Hands found each other across the grass as they lay in white clover and played with matched fingertips before lacing and memorising lines, callouses and scars they already knew. Both earth-bound tones, green and brown, watched a brighter blue as clouds drifted overhead.

Gladio used each passing cloud as stepping stones towards thoughts, plans and possibilities. Their hands parted, but they stayed close enough to hear the other breathe and simply know they were there. He drifted into his mind and followed walls he knew well, and others. To keys and time spent with quiet company that simply understood. It deafened him to the near silent busying of her hands.

Gladio took a deep breath, one hand under his neck as he could see time passing overhead.

“Rena?” he asked in soft gravel. A smooth hum, low and calm, was his reply.

“Mhm?”

“I was thinkin’…”

“Oh, here we go,” she said, though her tone was quietly eager.

Still, her words put a smile on Gladio’s face. It wouldn’t be her if she didn’t tap on the window of bliss and question the quiet of peace. Another full breath gave him all the air he needed to articulate.

“You… wanna move in together?”

Whatever hushed activity she’d taken up slowed ever so slightly. Gladio swallowed and gave his reasoning.

“I could move into yours, if you wanted to keep it. Or you into mine. There’s a garden, so the dogs would be okay. We wouldn’t have any rent, just utilities. Or… we could get somewhere different? Start fresh.”

Rarely, if ever, dumbstruck, Rena turned it over in her head. His reasoning was good. They spent that much time around each other anyway, with constant trips to the other’s homes. Apartment living with the dogs wasn’t a piece of cake, but it was manageable. She’d made do and made it her own.

They’d have a home. A place shared and somewhere to end and begin the day. Dawn and dusk.

It felt wrong to tear him away from home. He was in the perfect place; close enough should he be required, either at the main house or the Citadel, but far enough away to be independent and private. Invading that space also felt wrong. Yes, there was a garden. Walled.

Walls define spaces. A different set of walls were being raised around them. This didn’t so much change things as give them a name and direction. Magnitude and momentum.

“What… do you want to do?”

“You go, I follow,” he said simply, as an absolute truth. Gladio then cocked his head and corrected himself. “Unless you tell me to go to hell.”

A quick beat of laughter at his side lifted some of the fizzing from his nerves.

“My lease ends in June. We can figure it out by then, right?”

_We._

Her own choice of words surprised her and made him smile. They’d been a _we_ for quite some time, but never out loud.

“Yeah,” he nodded. He took a deep breath and let his word fall gentle on the exhale. “Yeah, we can figure it out by then.”

“Good, now sit up.”

“What?”

“Sit up,” she prompted again, slipping her hand under his back to push him up. Before he could turn over his shoulder and see what she was doing, her hand covered his eyes. “Close them.”

“Okay…” Gladio relented carefully.

He shut his eyes and felt the hand move away. Something was placed on his head. Light but encircling. Rena moved at his side as she readjusted it.

“And…there.”

Gladio opened his eyes and gave her a questioning look. He reached up and carefully plucked the thing from his head. What came down in his hands was a crown, well woven and braided, with wildflowers, the jewels of the clearing. His frown held over a smile as he read her.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” he asked, still holding his expression.

Rena shook her head with a barely-there smile. “Like I’m not allowed to pull shit like this.”

“Cute shit?”

“That shit.”

She took the crown and put it back on his head, only to readjust it a moment later. Gladio breathed a laugh as warmth spread through him, the heady type reserved for wheat fields in the evening and the bed of a meadow. Leant against each other’s sides, Gladio gave her that look again, the one she didn’t understand.

“Teach me.”

At her momentary frown, he flicked his eyes up to the crown.

“I’m not getting one if you don’t.”

There was a soft sincerity to words that meant far more than their simplest, most obvious meaning.

As Gladio gathered flowers into his lap, she taught him to twist, tie and weave the stems, until he’d made her a crown of her own. Messier than the one she’d given him, but that suited just fine. They were freshly crowned as they hid from the world amongst flowers, in their own quiet kingdom of nowhere.

Hours passed in silence and whispers that weren’t far from it. They were content to let time pass them by, instead of racing it. Clouds sailed as the eternal march continued on in a journey between oblivions; the undeniable progression of existence, whether it changed much or not.

There were only a dozen warning drops before the sky split and spilled a torrent over them. Gladio was under the cover of trees first, shortly joined by Rena as she let the rain kiss her cheeks. It was one of the few things she’d always let touch her. They watched their clearing soak as the static of instinct covered their skin.

The bright flash, like spark before a lighter took to flame, blinded them for an instant. A few seconds later, it was followed by a low rumble of thunder that galloped through the ground. Each foreboding roar as the rain became torrential. No amount of foliage could shield them from it. Water battered the leaves and soaked already soft ground until the world was drenched, and then kept going.

He let his arms fall around her, his chest to her back, as they watched for the next click of lightning. It burst bright and blank as darker clouds in gunmetal grey and pewter filled the sky. The clamour of closer thunder shook through them. He glanced at her during the performance. There was a calm wildness in her eyes; one that understood the power above her head but didn’t fear it. Another bellow from the clouds put a small smile on her face. Ramuh must’ve had some touch on her mind.

Gladio’s mind crossed a line. He could feel it seeping into his skin like the rain that dampened them both. He’d heard that same rain tapping on windows or roofs, smelled it on the morning air or seen it with countless panes of glass and without. The sensation of it becoming part of him was altogether more real and came with a single thought that little more than a raindrop as it soaked into his skin, through ink and scars alike.

He pressed a soft kiss to her hair, had his fingers laced with hers, rested his chin on her head and simply being with her as that single thought was accepted without qualm or query.

He loved her.


	19. Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring turns to summer and more than the seasons are changing. Niflheim make their offer, and it spells diverging paths for Gladio and Rena, with one accepting of the road ahead and the other torn by the prospect of separation.

It was a different type of space. Simultaneously limited and infinite. Where the field ended, walls began and hemmed them away from the rest of the city. The grass had been allowed to grow. Even as the lush thickness of a fallow winter softened the training field, the heavy impact of years of boots kept some patches bald, others thinned. The fresh cuttings were yet to be gathered from the field.

At one end, a cloud of grey was gathered. Three dozen recruits were being barked at by a voice that was rougher than usual. Raw, sharp gravel in a powerful tone grated them as they received their lecture.

“He’s really going for it, huh?” Noct panted softly as his pale cheeks flushed.

Ignis’ lance met a knife mid-air and was held still. A brief nod from his opponent allowed him to steal a glance at Gladio. Hair wispy and resting down from its usual coif and face turned a delicate pink, the sharp sunlight set every fleck of gold in green eyes, as though the jade was veined with it.

“Quite, though I’m not entirely sure what’s gotten on his nerves.”

The weapons held steady and crossed in the air jolted as a loud sneeze came from his opponent.

“Bless you,” came from both Noct and Ignis before they could check themselves, no more a reflex than flinching at the initial sound.

“I’ve got a fuckin’ idea.”

“How come you two, the most… I dunno, _outdoorish?_ Outdoorsy? _Both_ have allergies?”

Rena sniffed and raised her brows over reddened eyes. Her voice was still hoarse and half lost from the sneezing. “He’s got allergies. I’ve got hayfever. Mine’s temporary.”

“Have you taken an-.”

“Yes, Iggy, I have. Thank you,” she said, tone gentle and clear as she held patient through constantly infuriating symptoms.

He nodded and readied the lance again. Sword in one hand, knife in the other and partially unable to breathe, she took stance.

Ignis had a speed and accuracy that was difficult to defend against, especially when combined with the seemingly complex movements he made with unmatched elegance.

Rena had power, unpredictability, and stubbornness on her side. That, and the sunlight glaring in his glasses, rendering him half-blind.

At the last second, he swapped the lance for daggers and came at her. Unable to cast the plain steel knife into the armiger, Rena caught one dagger with it, and the other with the sword. Fine features held perfectly still and focused. Softer features were held in that hard expression, the one that gave nothing away.

Ignis dodged to her side and was blocked by the length of the sword, both daggers held in the air. He twisted one under the blade to push it up. The other was bound for her ribs. The hunting knife let nothing pass. He cut through the air with all the precision and practiced refinement years in the Guard had taught him.

Daggers came from all directions, sharp and menacing. The high singing of steel against steel, again and again, was one that continued as the warm spring sun rose higher. As lungs burned and sweat polished paler skin, Ignis made the mistake of waning for an instant.

She took it. The sword was used as a shield, to dodge and distract, as she made him move back. Rena left her flank open. Ignis was too cautious to take the bait. He was also wise to her double-bluffs.

His body reacted before his mind could stop it on the third opening. Daggers sliced through the air, bound for her hip and neck, simultaneously and from opposite directions. She ducked beneath both, grappled his arm, spun to drive her knee into the back of his and threw him to the ground with a solid thump.

As Ignis wheezed, she braced for another sneeze, eyes narrowed and teeth gritted. It disappeared in a peppery burn.

“Fuck, I hate when they do that,” she growled. Rena cast the sword back and offered a bound hand to Ignis. He took it and was pulled to his feet. After briefly dusting himself off, they locked eyes for a moment. “Water?”

“Water.”

Both turned from the field and made to the nearby bench. Bottles were pulled from bags and drained. Facing the sun made her skin prickle with the rising heat. All three of them were of fair complexions, and ones that suffered sunlight. Noctis, of course, had been slathered in suncream the recommended fifteen minutes before going outside, as per Ignis’ ensured efforts. Ignis also wore suncream but didn’t so much burn as take on a subtle bronzing. Rena could already see the freckles on her shoulders darkening.

A few days of glorious weather had started to bake the city. The breezes were cool, though they’d warm as high summer approached. The air would burn. It would be heat enough to melt tar and bake the bricks until they cracked and crumbled. Fire itself would rain over Insomnia in the Infernian’s damnation.

A rougher sneeze announced another presence.

Two of the three jolted, while the third simply turned over her shoulder. All but voiceless when he spoke at his usual volume, Gladio was choked by a blocked nose and losing his patience with being unable to breathe. As he approached the bench, Rena dug a bottle from her bag and held it up. The clear, amber liquid had the viscous shifting of a thicker salve with thin lemon slices floating amongst the ice cubes.

“Thanks,” he barely said and not through choice, as he took the bottle and sipped. Sweet, floral honey almost mocked him but did more to comfort. As Rena pulled her own bottle of the soothing blend from her bag, both regained their voices, little by little.

“How’s the fresh meat?”

Gladio shook his head with wide, slightly bloodshot, eyes. “Too fresh. Look at ‘em.”

All four heads turned to the originally disorganised cloud of recruits in grey. They’d been set tasks; some sparred, some were on the floor doing push ups, burpees, and all manner of other horrors, as the rest ran laps around those in the middle.

“That’s just fuckin’ cruel,” she said between sips.

“Eh. They need to learn, and fast. Big changes happening upstairs.” Gladio could hardly speak. The usual roughness of his voice had scratched itself to a ghost of the warm sound with powerful sneezes.

“I heard, Monica told me.”

“Big what?” Noctis spoke up.

He’d hidden in the narrow shade of the bench, one arm draped over his forehead as the other played with the grass. The blessing of a black training uniform was that it hid the sweat well. The extent of said perspiration was revealed when he tried to puff the raven wisps of his fringe away, only for them to be stuck to his forehead.

Ignis took a deep breath and began his explanation.

“Due to recent events, which you’d know more about if you actually paid attention at meetings but that’s beside the point, the political atmosphere between ourselves and the Empire has… deteriorated somewhat. There was a skirmish in Duscae just last week. Crown citizens have no idea, it was kept hushed to minimise the panic. The Glaive were deployed and all but two returned, though several were injured.”

“Libs broke his leg,” Gladio croaked.

Ignis raised a brow. “No?”

“Yep. Nyx pulled him outta there,” he lost his voice in a crackle before sipping some more and continuing in a glum tone. “Got reassigned for it. Gate duty.”

“Which gate?” Rena asked as she tightened the bindings on her hands enough to crack her knuckles before loosening them off again.

“West.”

“Ah, that fuckin’ sucks. If it’d been North, he’d have been on shift with Cas.”

“Again. Ignis. Changes?”

“Ah, right. Yes, so, the Crownsguard on a whole had been given a new directive; protect the citizens and city in case of imperial invasion. We… We’ve been treading a narrowing path for some time now. The reform comes with increased emphasis on recruitment. The Council have decided they want more-.”

“Boots on the ground,” Gladio sniffed. He brought the hem of the training t-shirt up and wiped his brow.

“People,” she said hoarsely.

“Yes,” Ignis sighed with finality. “It’ll sort itself out within the month. Nothing to worry about. It was time the Guard was reformed anyway.”

“Ey.”

The quiet bleat for attention came with a finger brushing against her elbow. Rena turned, gaze already angled to catch Gladio’s as she met him. He jerked his head over his shoulder and sniffed again.

“C’mon, let’s see how much your throws hurt on dirt.”

“Less than the halls, predictably,” Ignis interjected. He pulled at the back of his shirt and the elastic of the sports fabric snapped it back to his skin with a puff of dry dirt. Gladio let his brows fall with a frown.

“Thanks Iggy. Now I’m gonna get the shit beaten outta me.”

“Want the usual?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

They left the bottles of iced honey-lemon in the shade of the bench and turned to head towards a space on the field. The trampled dirt was level enough and cracked in places where the heat had proved too much. The burning fizz of blue ashes put a weapon in her hand. A few paces ahead, Gladio reached into the armiger. He paused.

“Give it back.”

“Why?”

“’Cause it’s mine.”

“It’s bulky as fuck, is what it is,” Rena said.

“That’s ‘cause it’s bigger than you.”

“It’s bigger than you too.”

She slung the broadsword over her shoulder and felt the weight of it. It was undeniably heavy, but so well-balanced it remained manoeuvrable. A small smile and a raised eyebrow from Gladio were enough for her to roll her eyes good-naturedly and cast it back. Gladio plucked it from the armiger before she could take his weapon again and watched her own appear in her hand. The sword was a decent length, narrow bladed and standard. The true danger came when combined with a far more material weapon, that was as familiar to her as her own hand. The hunting knife was safe and strapped to her thigh, and it would stay there. Of all the chances she’d had to pull it on him, she’d never taken one.

Gladio sniffed casually before sweeping his blade through empty space, bound for her side. The swift _whoosh_ of air was stopped with the sharp ringing of glaivesteel. Bright sunlight glinted off dancing metal. It almost blinded the onlooker hidden in the shade of the back of headquarters, as the walkway hidden behind granite walls and large glass windows overlooked the training field.

Crystal blue eyes watched with a heavy heart. It lightened when blades crossed, and a dazzling smile graced his son’s features. He wondered how many Gladio had left, then cursed himself for thinking such things. It would all be fine. It was just one trip to Altissia.

Freed of the thick fabrics and layers of ornate council robes, Clarus breathed a deep sigh as he observed, dressed in smart black trousers, a black shirt and immaculately polished shoes. Still, even normality had a weight these days. The Empire was rearranging their chess pieces behind a velvet curtain of silence. What the resulting play would be, whether it was outright war or a false withdrawal, was unknown. The uneasiness seemed laced in the air conditioning. There was a snake in the vents.

His eternal frown deepened slightly. There was something about the Lauritas girl. Gladio fought harder and did things he’d never normally risk with a steel sword. A wooden weapon, yes, but not steel. They’d pushed each other to the ends of their wits in the old headquarters, and months of sparring together had only made them better, and equal in that. She’d been the best training tool he’d ever witnessed. Unpredictable, persistent and determined, she’d done nothing but surprise them. It took patience to be stubborn. Her recent expeditions had pulled small details from the outer regions, though nothing concrete. Talk never was. Gladio hadn’t talked about her since they’d left their trials in the old quarters. Prior to that, he’d offered nothing but damnations.

Clarus took another deep sigh, one that disguised the approaching footsteps. He could feel them in the floor. The familiar scent curled from him, bitter and burned. Black pepper.

“Good morning, Captain Drautos.”

“Good morning, Captain Amicitia.”

They stood alongside each other and observed. A quick twist from her, one that blocked him with a shield and let her hook her leg around his, almost brought Gladio to the ground. He grabbed the shield and lifted it up, only for her to cast it away for a sword and meet his blade with hers.

But they weren’t really watching.

The memory of the balcony was different for both of them. Different sets of eyes had seen different things, ones that time had made more sinister.

Drautos had felt the warmth of her skin, breathed her scent and become drunk on her words in a temptation he’d since damned himself for, but found unable to drop entirely. A pearl wrapped in mercury, she was blissful but poisonous. Clever. Calm. In retrospect, impressive.

Clarus had been reminded of just how young she was. In an entirely different world to the one she knew, she’d been dragged into the ring like a dog on a chain, beaten, tested over and over again, thrown into the wilds to teach four boys who were hapless in that environment, saved his own son’s leg, all of their hides countless times, almost been killed and since acted as one of their spies.

Clarus found his jaw clenched and deliberately loosened it. He glanced to his side.

Greyed sea green eyes followed her every move. Drautos asked his question simply.

“Will she go with them?”

Clarus let silence play between them for a moment, and almost regretted a decision that had already been made. There was no point in regretting. It was done. The road had been chosen and laid out before them. At least he would still be there if anything happened, though he was certain Lauritas would do the same thing she’d done the previous two times; she wouldn’t deny it, but she wouldn’t press it any further. She’d rather it was forgotten.

Clarus hadn’t forgotten. Once he’d started dancing with her and witnessed her youth, no matter how ageless she was, his mind had turned to his own daughter. If it had been Iris, he would’ve killed Drautos on that balcony.

“No.”

The word came weighty and final.

“Shame.”

For all of Drautos’ honesties, Clarus didn’t believe this one. He distracted himself with the sparring pair. She’d managed to floor Gladio. When a bound hand was stretched down to him, he took it without hesitation and was pulled to his feet.

“She’d give strong sons.”

Clarus’ stomach turned. He looked at Drautos, who was still watching her with a sickening intent. The voiced thought that had come with a raised eyebrow and a jaw that continually clenched and unclenched, rang around Clarus’ head as he tried to choke it and let it be gone.

He could hardly find himself blameless. He’d had the final say in allowing Drautos to try her and had allowed her to let his discrepancy slide after that first occasion. In the days following the ball and the balcony, he’d called her into his office and asked her what exactly had happened on that balcony. She’d given him an account that passed as perfectly honest, considering Drautos’ history with her. She’d gone out for some air with that blond- who was he? The Argentum boy. Well, the Argentum boy had a history of his own, one he didn’t know but Clarus did. He’d gone back inside, she’d stayed out, Drautos had arrived and talked to her. She’d relayed the conversation as best she could remember it. All up to the point of Clarus’ arrival.

Clarus couldn’t swallow when he considered what might’ve happened if he hadn’t decided to take some air for himself. The more he thought about it, and the longer Drautos’ eyes stayed fixed on her now with an almost longing look, regretful at a missed shot, _might’ve_ turned into _would’ve._

She’d have been defenceless, unable to summon a weapon at the time. She had a will to live, an inherent need to survive given by years in the wilds, so wouldn’t have thrown herself over the edge. She might’ve tried to fight him. A quick glance to his side reminded him of Drautos’ imposing physicality; tall, muscular and he knew how to use it. He’d already pinned her once, and she’d been armed. The mark of that day was on both of them, carved into their faces.

She’d have been silenced. She hadn’t screamed, even when he’d cut her cheek or when Gladiolus had made her almost break her own hands. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a scream. Clarus could barely envision tears, foreign on those cheeks as she fought to keep her face from betraying the pain of being forced. Drautos would’ve tried his damnedest to tear a cry from her, a broken sob or even to enrage her, to make her stare him down just so that he could strangle her all over again. He’d make her face him and watch. He would’ve forced whatever he wanted from her, be it tears, cries, or blood.

What of the consequences? Would she have denied it? Asked for it to go no further?

In the gnarled darkness that gripped his mind, Clarus could see her knocking on his office door months down the line, to ask for leave or _to_ leave. He wouldn’t even have heard when the child had been born. They were not circumstances through which a person should come into the world, though it happened. What would they look like? Would they grow into their father and haunt her? Would he take some sick satisfaction from that?

She’d give strong sons, after all.

* * *

The evening sun painted the bricks of the splashback in rusty hues. It cast a large cloak of light, all straight lines and hard edges, from the small kitchen window. Rena was held in restful industry, a quiet type of busyness, at the stove as she seasoned, shook and stirred her way to a meal. The smell of garlic and frying salmon never failed to make her mouth water, but they did nothing to lift the weight that sat in her gut, foreign and strange.

She hadn’t felt something like it in years. Rena had long trained herself out of deeper emotions, to the point where she didn’t have them. They were dangerous. Undoubtedly useful, at times, but risky. To have them was to toss a knife and catch it. Sometimes it would be caught by the handle. Others by the blade.

Her knife was a sharp one. It hadn’t so much split her open, side to side, and spilled her into the world in blood and the fragilities of humanity, so much as it poked, teased at her side with the point of the blade. It was a threat. She’d dealt with threats before.

Shaking her head from the distractions of thought, she’d always had too many of those, Rena drained the rice and broccoli. They were joined in the bowl by the fish and sauce. Honey, soy, ginger and garlic wafted up with the steam. It was enough to make the dogs sit and give the occasional whine. She stacked the pots in the sink, already half full of hot soapy water and left them to soak before Rena walked through to the sofa and set herself down. At the approach of the dogs, promising heavy heads on her knees, she curled up and left the bowl in her lap to sip at the glass of water she’d brought with her.

Rena managed three mouthfuls before her desire to go without it exceeded the guilt of wasting it. The bowl was left on the coffee table, after a hard stare to the dogs to warn them off it. She picked up her phone. The first string of messages she saw were the ones between Gladio and herself. He was still working and wouldn’t answer until he had a moment. Even then, it would be a brief moment. Prompto had just started his shift. Cas was at dinner with Fletch.

Her phone was quickly abandoned next to the bowl.

It was just going to be one of those evenings. Restless. Itching. The type she damned and cursed. It wasn’t as jarring as standing on cut glass or even eggshells. It was a room that was too hot. The initial subtle fizz of a sneeze. Something stuck between the teeth that refused to be moved. It was a sense of wrongness. Some static had lifted her hackles, as though the seas now ran into rivers by some absurd reversal.

Rena’s eyes landed on a book as it sat, quiet and innocent on the coffee table. She’d barely finished toying with the idea before she’d wrung its neck and reached for the book. As she found the page, she stretched out to lie on the sofa. It still wasn’t long enough for her to lie flat out.

The same page, no matter how many times she read it, never seemed to make it into her head. Rena could barely get to the end of a paragraph without forgetting what had just happened, whatever detail she’d missed. She just kept trying. The hope that one of her repetitions would snag and catch in her mind, capture her, and let her follow the narrative began to wane.

Then the door was unlocked and thrown open. Both she and the dogs lifted their heads. Gladio winced at his brash entrance and closed the door carefully behind him. From under furrowed brows, his eyes locked on hers as he ignored the dogs licking at his hands.

“Did you see it?”

Rena’s own frown gathered. “See what?”

“The news? Any of it?”

There was fire in his eyes that burned him far more than it did her. Teeth half-bared and a body forced to stand still, he fixed on her.

“No,” she said, frown changing from one of confusion to the wider-eyed version of concern. “Why-?”

“The Nifs offered a damn peace treaty, that’s why!”

Both dogs stopped wagging their tails at his arrival and retreated to Rena, stationed either side, as she stood from the couch and crossed her arms loosely. With a tone like his, already rough from the snags more sneezing than usual had put in this throat, she thought it best to be one step ahead of him.

“What’s the catch?”

He chose now, of all times, to take a moment to breathe and collect himself. The holdall on his shoulder slung to sit by the coat stand before he took a step towards her. There was a look on her, one that warned him. He hadn’t seen it in months, but still knew and respected it. He forced himself still, brows gathered and shaking his head as though he barely believed it himself.

“Everything outside the wall. It’s theirs.”

She gave no obvious reaction. Rena was still, even the dogs were motionless at her sides. After a moment that was barely long enough, she moved again. Swallowed and opened her mouth to speak.

“And we have to go to Altissia,” he blurted through gritted teeth, as though saying it slowly would give him too much chance to stop. The heavy frown and clenched jaw was met by an altogether calmer expression, but no happier. She wore a different frown, one that asked questions and made plans. Gladio took another deep breath and let his explanation fall from his mouth, each word leaden and bitter as he spoke in as a helpless a tone as she’d ever heard from him. “Noct’s getting married, it’s part of the deal. It’s gonna take us a month to get there and… You’re not coming.”

Her beat of silence was again too short for his liking.

“So?”

“ _So_ I’m gonna be away for two months, at _least_ , and you-.” Gladio came to a sharp conclusion halfway through an unfinished thought, with all the sudden stopping of a bird flying into a window. “You don’t even give a shit?”

“Gladio, it’s not the end of the fuckin’ world,” she defended, her tone markedly calmer than his. She watched the bold lines of his features pull into a deeper frown before he loosened off completely to a tired disbelief.

“No. No, I guess it’s not.”

“Don’t start, c’mon.” Rena cocked her head before shaking it.

“Oh, I’m not _starting_ anything!” he snapped. She held her ground and breathed a quiet sigh. It only angered him more. “You keep acting like you don’t give a shit and it’s a pain in the ass!”

“What do you want me to fuckin’ do?! Cry about every last fuckin’ bump in the road? Scream at you when you piss me off? What the fuck do you want?”

“I don’t fucking know! I don’t know! Okay?!” he fumed, hands wrought into claws as he moved his arms, ending with them spread in his frustration.

It was a gesture she knew well. One that cried comfort, begged for rest like a child haunted by nightmares, tired and unable to sleep.

Gladio’s head was pounding. Anger was petrol in his veins, waiting to ignite as it heated. He hated this. That same fuel pooled in his gut and poisoned him as much as it weighed him down. Every second he spent looking at her made a little more trickle down and swirl with the rest. As much as it burned him like acid, he fought to keep it there. To stop it from rising up. He’d already half-failed; it was heating the back of his eyes and lacing his throat.

To Rena, he was as tense and highly strung as she’d ever seen him. Broad shoulders bunched up, hands fought to stay out of fists. He’d clenched his jaw so hard she was sure he’d crack a tooth as dark eyes burned at her.

She took a subtle, steadying breath and loosened the edge from her expression, like sheathing a knife. Green eyes flicked to the floor before they fixed back on him, gentler and less defensive.

“Gladio…”

The soft, low sound of his name from her mouth tore at him. He didn’t know what to think, his mind was swirling and deafened by chains. They were chains he damned; chains that threatened to drag him away and had now promised to fulfil that threat. Sworn, just as he had. Not that he’d had any choice. Not that he’d change anything. He was being tugged two ways, held close by roots that had wrapped carefully around him and thickened with time only for his chains to wrench him away and threaten to break them. As if this burning moment wasn’t already chewing at the roots and casting him out into a freedom he didn’t want. Freedom had never sat well with Gladio. It was outcast and vulnerable, too limitless to be trusted. He’d never known it, sometimes craved it and sometimes feared it.

“Calm down, alright? Getting pissed off isn’t gonna change anything- yeah, it’s shit, but you still have to go.”

Her words played over and over in his mind. They only made the fight worse. Now the roots were growing over the chains, winding themselves between the links and strangling the metal for him. They stilled it just enough, as she always had, and would hold them steady for as he long as he needed it, before growing back and freeing him to be taken.

Gladio tried to find a decent response, from proclamations to more arguments to a scream. He heard his answer break out into the room and despised each burning coal of the words.

“I need a shower.”

With that, he snatched his holdall, marched to the bathroom and closed the door carefully, only to lock it. Rena shook her head just as the sputtering of the shower began and sighed a curse under her breath.

“Fuck’s sake.”

She dropped back onto the leather and rested on her side. Bent legs provided a space between them and the back of the sofa, one that was quickly snapped up by Seyna, who rested her head on Rena’s hip until a hand began to play with her ears. Ochre was more than content to lie and guard the space between sofa and coffee table. Rena tried to read again, with little success. That knife in her side had started to push, as much as she winced away from it.

Instead, she resigned herself to looking around the room. The herbs were growing lusher as they basked in the evening sun. That same light cut the room in two. One half was bright and aurous, flecks of dust burning as they danced down and fell where they may. The other was darker, hidden by the angle, and made of rougher elements. The door had a few scratches in it, thought the brickwork around it was even less forgiving.

Each and every effort she’d put into this place surrounded her as feathers of a nest. She’d made _herself_ comfortable, curated a space that met her needs and, for once, wants. There were so many memories already. She reached under the sofa and pulled out the leatherbound book that never gathered dust for long.

The photo album Prompto had given her was half-full. Each small documentation of a life that was hers had been put inside, some with annotations scrawled on the back. Who, when and why. Some things were nuances. The steam of a cup of coffee catching the light, the first few flowers on the rosemary, and other small observations. The dogs were in most of them, though over time a tanned hand had appeared in the frame, stroking through their fur or holding their ears up in comical mimicry. A few candid shots of Gladio himself, often followed by an identical pose with only his eyes having moved to the camera and a smile having appeared, dotted through the book. Some even had her in them. Mostly from Gladio’s high angle, his dazzling smile half-hidden behind the mess of curls. There were other small moments he’d snuck into the album. One of their hands, fingers twined, and with a backdrop of messy sheets and morning light, made her brows gather in a soft frown. Another of a sleepy morning, possibly the same, was of the two of them curled up together, his lips pressed to her head while hers brushed his neck.

Rena came to the most recent photograph. Taken little more than a week before, it was of Gladio sitting in the armchair. A curious smile played at his lips as he watched the dogs. The most striking thing about the shot was the evening sun setting behind him as it crowned him with a warm glow. There was an easy strength to him, one that had always steadied her. When he sat in that chair, and the time was right, he was regal. All noble lines and quiet majesty, even as he remained as humble and earthy as ever.

At the soft click of the bathroom lock, Rena glanced up and put the album under the sofa again. From the soft darkness of the hallway, Gladio appeared, eyes on the ground and careful with his presence. He sniffed, still fighting his allergies. The brief sound was enough to alert the dogs. Seyna approached first, though wary. Ochre followed but still made a point of standing between them.

Earthen eyes met hers when she spoke, low and hoarse.

“You gonna stand there all night?”

“No.” He shook his head a little. A hesitant frown knitted his brows as he asked an altogether more careful question. “D’you want me to leave?”

“On the trip or right now?” she asked, still lying on the sofa. Gladio raised his eyebrows for a moment before croaking his own question.

“Both?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation. Something in that one honest word was enough to sew up the tears he’d given himself. Gladio stood, hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts as the baggy tank moved with his breaths, and for the first time, he looked out of place. His own quiet uncertainty made him darker and let him disappear into the shadows. “C’mere.”

Gladio crossed the room in a few strides before flopping down on top of her on the couch, face buried in her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

As his arms wound around her and the solid weight of him pressed down, Rena put a hand through his hair and smoothed it back before twisting the ends around her fingers.

“Me too.”

Gladio rested, kept steady by the gentle tide of her breathing and the warmth of her under him, both solid and soft. He was so tense, muscles threatening to cramp as his headache waned, dropping from a vice squeezing his temples to no more pain than if he were to do the same thing with his fingertips.

He used the experience of her to ground himself. Each note of her scent, even thought it was weaker these days, was the honey, petrichor, pine that he knew. The salt was from his own skin. That and the smell of leather. Fingertips followed curls and tried not to disturb them as he wound his way amongst the dark mess. Every steady beat of her heart slowed his down, just as she had with words and a careful approach.

Rena wasn’t so much trapped as limited, in a way that was no more oppressive than wearing a belt or tightening shoelaces. He was as heavy in this comfort as the circumstances that demanded it. To have something between her and the void, when even the ceiling was too far away today, felt as though she were half-buried and made safe by it. Warmth passed from him to her, like the sun to the ground.

They were hiding from this. The reality of their high, the bliss of their own soft folie a deux, had turned gritty and sour. There was no point in trying to snatch it back from the hand of sobering intervention. The only thing to be done was to enjoy it while they could and then each would drown in the withdrawal. Alone. It would be a fiery baptism, but one that could temper them.

Seconds stretched into minutes in that timeless embrace. Gladio broke the silence with a hoarse concern.

“He’s gonna be terrified.”

“Noct?”

“Yeah. It’d be worse if it was someone else- you know about Lady Lunafreya, right? The oracle from Tenebrae?” he asked in a whispered question.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of her. Seen her picture too, she’s pretty. That was the Thursday mission,” she said quietly, gathering strands of his hair to form three small sections from the rest.

_“Was?”_

“Glaives took the job on. Standard retrieve and deliver, with handover of a package. Would’ve been a piece of cake.”

Gladio frowned against her neck. “Why’d the Glaive take it?”

“No idea,” Rena yawned. “Apparently, they wanted somebody a little more experienced, and magic’s always useful, especially if something goes tits up. Mission details are still classified, and I’ve already told you too much.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

Her leg was beginning to fizz with the lack of circulation, as bitter as sparkling water. Rena resisted it as long as she could before shuffling to lie flatter underneath him. Gladio’s hand was on her hip immediately, gently but still there.

“Not right now. Not in the mood.” Gladio shook his head against her skin. He lifted up to see her. Rena met his tired gaze. The darkness around his eyes from nights stolen by pollen and now a journey on the horizon only made the amber dull and tarnished.

“Me neither, just getting comfortable.”

Gladio planted his hands on the sofa and lifted himself up to let her turn. Once flat on her back, he set himself back down. He was heavy, there was no doubt about it, but it was comforting. A presence defined by more than just sight, sound and scent. Sensation was something they’d worked hard for in the beginning. Forehead to her cheek, he settled with a deep sigh that was returned by her own, strong enough to lift him. After a few more moments of comfortable silence, wrapped in each other and warm, Gladio set his words like droplets on the still water of the quiet.

“What d’you think about it? The treaty?”

Rena shook her head slowly and gathered her thoughts. She took a deep breath before letting them fall on it, gentle as autumn’s leaves as a stream carried them away.

“If it’ll end the war,” she managed, still stitching the rest of her conclusion together. Gladio spoke up again.

“Your family’s out there.”

“They’ll be alright,” she nodded. “Nobodies from nowhere. That house is far enough from anything, only news they’ll get is from Mollie. Cleigne’s seen worse from the Nifs _and_ our own. It’ll be fine.”

Rena met Gladio’s pinched brows and searching eyes. They held all the warmth of a campfire in the small hours, as it died down but clung to its fuel and flames. All the softness of earth so soaked, squeezing it would give water. Sodden earth can give way and topple trees, entire forests in landslides and with little warning, unless the roots run deep. Even then, they must hold on to each other, and to hope.

“They’ll be alright,” she said, with absolution and certainty. As though it might convince her a little more if she managed to convince him. The hand she’d kept to the back of his head moved to cup his stubbled cheek, thumb stroking along the bone. This time, she knew she was right and was certain of it. “We’ll be alright.”

Gladio’s eyes stayed with hers. They only ever moved to flick down to her lips slowly, in question and seeking permission to a soft oblivion he wasn’t sure he deserved but knew he wanted. Needed. To feel lost and somehow that blindness granted him awareness of soul, to forget body and mind, to silence existence for a moment. Gentle eyes that already allowed him to be lost in the forest, somewhere far from here where there were no fences, no walls. Only rivers. Mountains. Trees. The feeling of being the only person in the world.

It was barely a whisper, but it was enough.

“We’ll be alright. It’s you and me, remember?”

Something in that broke Gladio. It wasn’t the sudden snip through a ribbon or the snap of a frayed rope. She’d broken yet another lock on yet another door and left it for him to walk through if he chose. Gladio’s conclusion nudged him before it curled up in his chest.

He twined his fingers with her hand at his cheek and let his head hang from his shoulders, forehead pressed to hers. Gladio nodded and gave his own hushed reply.

“You and me.”

A slow nuzzle against each other led to a kiss that granted them oblivion and let them away from all of this for a moment. It let them forget. It let them just _be._ Absent existence was their bliss as lips met soft and careful, tasting as much of apologies as promises. Even when they broke apart it had scarcely felt such a savage ripping of life from body. They stayed close, tangled with one another as though tying themselves in a knot would deter anything from trying to pry them apart. One was supported by the other, while the other could hide underneath.

After a while, both grew heavier and sank, warm and bound, into the sofa. Gladio’s breathing was changing. She knew it well. Each moment she spent absently playing with his hair or in the soft game of nudge and nudge back, hum and be harmonised for a moment, he relaxed and let his tension go in favour of simply being there, and with her. A deeper breath from Rena made him listen out for her words.

“Noct’s gonna need you. They all are. Keep them right… He’s gonna be scared shitless, Gladio. So are you. Just… take care of each other, alright? You can’t go far wrong if you try.”

Gladio accepted her words with a kiss to her cheek. The warm crackle of his voice, hoarse and ruined as torn rags, was deep and resonated from his chest as he gave form to breath.

“What was that thing you said? Back when we were camping, when we were on the way home? _What’s for you_ or somethin’.”

“What’s for you won’t go past you.”

Gladio let the words sink in. Most things in his life had been forced on him. Shoved into his hands or snuck into his pockets. Nobody had ever told him he’d feel this tired when he was this young. With every day that drew past, he could feel the feathers fall from his wings, shed to the air and stolen on a breeze that once uplifted him.

Rena wasn’t a feather, nor the wind in his wings or the pull of time that plucked him. She wasn’t any part of him. But she stood by his side, held him up when he lost his balance and softly reminded him that he couldn’t just fly away from all this.

Flying was overrated anyway.

How would he hold her hand if he did?

* * *

“Are you taking these?”

Gladio peeked up from his spot, crouched over a holdall as he filled a supply pack as effectively as he could.

His living room was covered in bags of all sorts. The plastic wrapping and tags of fresh equipment had been thrown into an open cardboard box, though they now gathered in a mountain of translucent white and khaki card. On the sofa, there were four holdalls, each far too big and full of what the others had deemed necessary. Littered around the room were canvas bags, some full and straining their seams, while others were half-empty. They’d pushed the coffee table to one side to clear enough space to avoid tripping over it and needlessly bruising shins.

Rena was at the dining table, holding up two looped pipes, no thicker than her pinkie, each with yellow plastic nozzles on the end. He narrowed his eyes and checked the mental inventory he’d made.

“…Yeah?”

“I’ll check the list,” she smiled and nodded.

Gladio watched her even more closely than before; a desperate attempt to memorise her. He gave a half smile and continued to narrow down Ignis’ kitchen to things they’d definitely need. As much as he’d been the most sensible in what he’d packed as a draft bag, Gladio had effectively rid him of two thirds of his kitchen. Longer trip meant more supplies, better gear. Prioritization was key.

She returned to the bag, eyes tearing through the piece of paper bearing his list. It was the second version, divided by section and function.

“I’m gonna put one in, then you’ve got a spare.”

“Okay,” he said. Gladio put the small cleaning kit for the kitchen into the bag and zipped it shut before slinging it behind the couch. “You almost done over there?”

The whirring of a zip gave him his answer. After the bag was stowed with the other finished packs, they both stood and face the sofa, confronted with the four holdalls.

“Can… you do mine…?” he asked, speaking as he adjusted plan in his head and held up one of the bags for her to take. “And Prompto’s?”

“Mhm,” she hummed, taking the bag and swapping it for one at her side. “Here’s Iggy’s.”

“How’d you know it’s his?”

“It’s clean.”

Gladio frowned gently as he took it and rearranged a box to sit alongside for the things that would go with them. He’d worked out the trunk space of the Regalia, and these boxes acted as units. Gladio was nine boxes into a twelve box job. Fourteen if things were flexible and could line the trunk instead, thus saving them from the loss of cubic spaces.

He unzipped the bag. After the top vacuum pack of clothes, which Gladio placed in the new box, and the recipe books that he did _not_ , he was met by a regimentation of black, red and white. Rena peeked over and snorted as he stared down at the bag and shook his head. Both spoke at the same time.

“Ebony.”

“Think that’s about the worst thing that could happen to him on this trip,” Gladio remarked, a fond smile given to the obsessive stacking of cans to fit as many as possible.

“Blinding headaches’ll do that to people,” she shrugged, pulling a wound mess of fairy lights from Prompto’s bag.

She allowed him the tripod. Just. Mainly because she’d never hear the end of it if she didn’t. The rest of his bag was fairly bare, just necessities and far, far too much styling wax. She let him have that too, otherwise _they’d_ never hear the end of it.

When she moved on to Gladio’s, it was all but done. One too many books. He’d packed his favourite, though not the copy she’d given him. Gladio caught her looking at the one in her hand for a just a second too long. It was dog-eared. Well-used and worn for it. She packed it into the box before picking the next few items from the bag. A glance to her side met Gladio’s gaze.

He cocked his head in explanation.

“Can’t afford to wreck the one you gave me. It’s too special.”

“Course it is, it’s an antique. Good condition too,” Rena shrugged.

“’S more than that.”

He allowed himself a warm smile and turned back to Noct’s bag and the two white paper bags of his most recent prescriptions. Gladio read the labels without stopping himself, his eyes and mind too fast for his sense to keep them. More of his usual painkillers, a large enough supply to floor an anak, at least. Only one bag fit in the box, and there was nothing in there that could be left behind.

A hissed breath from his side gathered Gladio’s attention. Rena looked up with a frown.

“Toiletry bag?”

He narrowed his eyes at the wall before he flicked his focus back to her and answered.

“C.”

Rena nodded and slipped behind to dig from the designated bag. She propped the small toiletry bag on the back of the sofa and pulled out the toothpaste and brushes, before she came to the shaving equipment. After removing three of the four handles, and leaving spare blades in the bellows of the bag, she repacked then reached towards Gladio.

“Give it here, we can squeeze it in,” she assured quietly. He handed her the prescription and watched as she somehow made it fit into that one tiny bag.

Gladio sipped up Noct’s bag, having used it to fit both his and Ignis’ supplies. He stood up straight and surveyed the mess of his living room. As much as there were things strewn everywhere, from packaging to all of their belongings, it was still his. Gladio took a deep breath and reminded himself that soon, it would be theirs.

Imagination whirring with the final burst of late night energy, he could see her touches within these walls. The dogs trotting in from the garden, caked in mud, only to shake made him smile. Especially when he considered the smearing chase that would ensue in a ragged attempt to get them into the bathroom and rinsed off. Mud was only mud, after all. It could be cleaned.

What made him smile more and softened his eyes, was the thought of breakfasts. Early mornings with the sun streaming in through his bedroom window and not waking up alone. Or even if he did, to the sound of her humming in the kitchen as she made coffee. Better yet, making dinner together, dancing around on the tiles and making her blush.

Domesticity held its own appeal, one that was realised with time and posed its own soft challenges. They’d share this space, make it theirs, until it was their turn to take to the main house and fill it. Till then, the thought of the quiet company he already shared made the corner of his mouth lift and his eyes warm.

After a moment, Rena tapped on the back of the sofa and bit the inside of her lower lip. They both looked around the room one more time. She didn’t want to say it. Then they’d just be one step closer to the fork in the path.

“I think that’s all of them.”

“Yeah,” Gladio nodded. He took another small step towards that parting. “Let’s get ‘em out.”

Each took three of the bags and traipsed outside to his jeep. He’d backed it up close to the annexe. The rough beige straps of the navy holdalls already chewed into their shoulders in the few minutes it took to get them outside and open the trunk. Each was carefully packed and as dense as it could get. Bare necessities; they’d have enough to buy comforts along the way. They packed the bags into the car, stacked to take up as little space as possible. The camping gear was yet to come.

Once they left the evening blue of the garden, where blossoms closed for the night, as though they’d shut their eyes demurely and waited for the warmth of the sun to rouse them with a caring touch, both made a second trip out with the tent, bedrolls and chairs.

The living room bared to them slowly. Only Ignis’ makeshift kitchen remained. Gladio cleared his throat and picked it up, only to look about the room. There was nothing left but the debris of packaging. Rena began to fold and roll plastic wrappings and pluck cable ties from places she had no idea how they’d gotten there. The waste box was full by the time Gladio came back.

“Drink?” she asked, eyebrows raised in offering.

He puffed out his cheeks and blinked slowly, eyelids becoming heavier with every moment spent awake. Sleep was a thief, and time its quarry. Each moment he spent unconscious felt like a moment wasted when he woke, to the point he’d stirred several times throughout the night and only carelessly cast away more time. He’d almost fallen asleep on shift that day and he’d been standing.

“Yeah, please,” Gladio nodded. Hands occupied by the box, he settled for scrunching his nose at her. Rena smiled and shook her head before he backed out of the room and she padded to the kitchen.

Gladio took a breath of cool evening air. By the time he came back, it’d still be hot and light at that time. The indigo and navy would be swapped for a paler twilight, one of a never-sleeping sky and the dozy world underneath it.

The tiles of the apartment floors were cool and hard under his feet. Familiarity softened them. At the end of the dark hallway, the soft glow of the brass lamps in the living room came gentle and beckoned him closer. As he came back into the room, it was more itself, yet he felt further removed from it.

“On the table.”

The words came low and smooth from his right. There was a glass of water, already beading with condensation, at the table. Beyond it, a familiar silhouette stood in the open patio door and leant against the other. The arm lifted to let herself take a sip before she took a deep lungful of the evening air, still drunk with the perfumes of dozens of types of flowers. The heady mix was ambrosia.

A hand slipped to her waist. The first thing she noticed, as always, was how gentle he was. Gladio truly was harmless. Next came the sheer size of him as he stood beside her and drained half of his glass. Then the best part. The warmth that seeped from his skin and shared with hers.

After a few moments of silence, Gladio took a deep breath. Rena turned her head towards him, eyes still fixed on the garden before they flicked to him.

“C’mon, I wanna show you something.”

He only smiled at her raised brow and almost playfully suspicious expression. After Rena turned in, Gladio shut the door after her, finished his water and left the empty glass on the table. She stood by the table, only for Gladio to reach out and take her glass gently. He moved to the other side of the dining room that formed the corner square of the living room – kitchen complex. One of the high shelves, occupied by larger recipe books and a few on edible plant were kept pinned by a snowglobe at one end and a stovetop coffee pot he never used, became the focus of his attentions.

“I was saving it for your birthday but… since I’m not gonna be here,” he reasoned, tone warm and gentle. Gladio reached up and gingerly caught the corner of something between the books until they revealed themselves. “I think now’s gonna have to do.”

He plucked the flat, thin squares of cardboard from the shelf and brought it down, flicking through the pile to pick one out. Rena’s eyebrows furrowed. His pleased expression, though muted, came as satisfied when he passed her and made his way to the nest tables at one end of the sofa. He lifted the lid of the record player and carefully took the vinyl from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable. With the side of his middle finger under the needle arm, he put it in position and let the record play.

Gladio turned to her as the music began, slow and heady. With only two lamps on in the room, and both positioned to let their glow flood over the walls in lazy, dim washes, the warm tones summer had returned to him were softened.

“C’mere,” he coaxed.

Rena sighed, left her glass on the table and met him in the middle of the living room. Hands were taken out of instinctive intimacy, fingers twined and settled gently between the scarred knuckles of each other. Gladio brought one of her hands to his chest. His heartbeat had just begun to lull her when he guided the hand to his shoulder and let his own land at her waist.

“I know you know how to dance,” he smiled. Rena met him with the faintest blush and cocked her head.

“Been a while,” she nodded. Both drew closer, pulled by the comfort promised. Gladio pressed a kiss to her forehead before meeting it with his.

“You had a good teacher.”

“Let me guess…”

Gladio nodded, now fully in stance for dancing, heavy limbs made lighter as they held each other up. “Iggy taught me, too.”

She huffed a laugh, one that pushed a smile onto his face.

Temples pressed, the slow dance was as gentle as rainclouds and their soft, dark grey. The hand on her waist drifted to her back and held her close. Her’s wound to the back of his neck. Each word was heavy and soft, carelessly devoted and as cleansing as a flood. It was a pledge. A promise. Smoky vocals, cast in cathedralic ambiance, let them escape before lips had even met. Vulnerability was only ever shown to the other.

There was a sense of loss to it. Of death. Deliberate but forgiven. It was rain and skies thick with cloud that made the whole world seem asleep. The quiet desperation of clinging to this made lips shake. Twined hands were the only thing between them; a union they guarded and hid, kept safe and warm.

They both knew it wasn’t helping. That it would do nothing but let them have it, and then be gone, lost to time that was fast running out. There was enough fear in that to coax lips together, to forget about the passage of existence, that eternal march, and be lost in nowhere. It was better there. Each held a key that unlocked the other. Kisses were soft and sorry, gentle pleadings and apologies, comforts and encouragements.

The silence after they parted was cruel.

“You gonna stay?”

Rena took a deep breath before returning the whispered question with one of her own. “What time is it?”

Gladio forced his eyes to open and peeked at the small antique clock on one of the bookshelves as it ticked dutifully, laughing as it stole them from each other.

“Ten.”

“I’ll check if Prom’s free.”

Letting go was worse than it should’ve been, and that was in the full knowledge that she’d be right back. Gladio needed that warmth. The soft presence that held him up with quiet strength. He wrapped around her as she stopped at the table and typed in a message. She settled back into him with a silent sigh.

A minute that seemed to take eternity and yet not long enough passed before the phone lit up silently with the reply. Gladio almost didn’t want to pry his eyes open and read the refusal. The way her shoulders softened had him convinced. He looked.

_Sometimes I’m convinced you can read minds O.o_

_Need to see my pupper babies before we leave!!!_

_Okie dokie, heading on over now :D_

Both breathed a sigh of relief, one that simply let them melt into each other a little more.

“Bed?” Gladio asked, barely able to keep his eyes open. A few days of subconscious, self-enforced deprivation was beginning to tear at him.

“Bed.”

After teeth were brushed, clothes changed into crinkled, tired combinations, Gladio folded himself into bed in his boxers and cursed himself as he set his alarm. Rena appeared at the door and padded to the bed, wearing her everyday underwear and that baggy, navy v-neck that just made her look so drowsy and soft, all flushed cheeks and a halo of chestnut frizz.

Lamps were turned out quickly in favour of a gentler darkness. Arms were found, bodies bound and twined to hold, both on their sides and pressed close, his chin on her head as they wrapped around each other. After a few minutes in that exhausted comfort, Rena pulled away. It made his chest cave. She sat up in bed, and Gladio braced for the sharp reason that would say this wasn’t helping, it was making things worse, that she should go.

Nothing. Nothing but the soft shifting of fabric. She came back to him soon enough, bare and soft.

“Too warm.”

Gladio hummed his response and pulled her close again, hearts lulling their owners to sleep so that they could speak in peace, without the interruptions of the mind to claw and slash at them. They could be quiet.

With the sheets slung about their hips, they let themselves be as despondent and tired as they felt. Neither would be able to be what they were until he got back. Till then, they were what they’d always been; exactly what they needed to be. It was a gift and a curse to be understood and allowed to _be_ in the company of another. Without them, that innermost door was closed to keep themselves safe.

Both fought to stay awake, refusing sleep as it lapped in rising tide, ever closer to washing them from the shore to drift. A hoarse hum that barely left his throat earned a soft shuffle. Rena moved blind but knew him anyway. Soft kisses were pressed to his jaw, lips, cheeks, the bridge of his nose and his forehead, warming him in patches like dappled sunlight. Gladio gave a drowsy kiss to the base of her throat. A yawn stretched her, then him, as he settled safe and held.

The protector protected.

* * *

“Mornin’ Joren.”

A shining smile graced soft features. “Good morning! How’re we doing today?”

“Eh, we’re alive.” Rena cocked her head. “How about you?”

“Pretty damn good. Tomorrow’s the big day, we got a huge order from the Citadel,” he said with wide nut-brown eyes. He handed the tiny device over with the stylus to sign.

“I bet,” she raised her eyebrows, half a smile on her face.

The bitter, wet scent of cut stems and heady notes of a hundred different pollens wafted from him as he stood, dressed in jeans, a grey t-shirt and the dark forest green waist apron bearing the florists logo. Gold earrings shone against chestnut skin and the stubble that dusted his jaw like smashed obsidian. He held the newest bouquet behind his back.

Rena handed the device back, flowers signed for. She met Joren’s eyes.

“You’re gonna like this one.”

“You sure?”

“Yup. Made it myself,” he grinned eagerly. He raised an eyebrow. “Ya ready?”

“Yeah.”

Joren revealed the flowers from behind his back. Wrapped in the standard waxy brown paper they’d all come in, were wistful bundles of forget-me-nots. They surrounded a more magisterial centrepiece; a trio of gladioli. The first of the flowers had bloomed shyly from the spire in pure white.

“Your guy’s got taste,” he smiled, biting the inside of his lip at the simple, quiet glory. “Hasn’t given a single duplicate yet. Must have him wrapped ‘round your finger.”

“Something like that,” she sighed through a smile and took the flowers carefully. “Thank you.”

“Alrighty then, see you in two weeks!”

Rena’s brows gathered. “He didn’t?”

“He did!” Joren almost squealed before laughing warmly. “Orders are sorted for the next two months. I can’t remember what he said when he called, something like he’ll not see you go without, or something. I dunno. Shop was mayhem when he came by. Picked these _exact_ ones out himself.”

She could only shake her head and damn him through a soft smile. “Trust him...”

“He’s a keeper, I’m tellin’ ya!”

“Oh, I know,” she said.

Joren waved from halfway down the stairs of the tenement building. The pavements and bricks were already beginning to heat with the morning. She turned her attention back to the flowers and mapped the shy simplicity of them, huffing a laugh at Gladio’s pun. He’d resisted the temptation to do that for months. Sooner or later, he was bound to run out of flowers and be left with no choice but to use his namesake.

The sound of the van door shutting sprinted down either end of the street. She looked up to give Joren her usual wave off. He leant out of the window and grinned.

“If you want, I’ll do the flowers for your wedding! Thing’d be nuts! Peonies and lilies and lady’s lace! _Oh_ , I’d have a frickin’ ball!” He raved through a grin before lifting the handbrake and driving off.

Rena shook her head, gave a wave and turned back into the tenement. The dogs were snuffling at the bottom of the door when she arrived, unlocked it and slipped inside. In a steady rhythm that had become practice by now, she plucked the clean vase from the draining board, put in enough water to keep them, stirred in the sachet of flower food and untied the string that kept the paper wrapped around them.

The flowers themselves were bound together with ivy, the curling tendrils dotted with dark but delicate leaves. She set them into the vase and let the vines flow over the edges of the glass. They were put in their rightful place, on the end table by the sofa, for the dogs to investigate as Rena stood back and looked around the room.

It had changed so much. Care in little doses, tiny touches and the slow softening of time had worked wonders. It wasn’t a rundown, crumbling mess, covered in cracks and stained with smoke and liquor.

The apartment had kept its strongest features and reformed them. The bricks gave her character, single pane windows kept them close to the elements as wooden floors bore the scratches and nicks of a century of living. It had a delicate damage to its nature. A chipped porcelain teapot, a wine-stained glass, the crumbs of rushed breakfasts and tarnished spoons of dinners taken hot, after long days of work. The apartment was industrious, and because of that, it knew how to relax. It knew what the good things in life were. It had witnessed them within these walls.

A knock at the door pulled Rena from her observations. She let go of the delicate, cool petal of the gladiolus she’d simply felt between finger and thumb and padded to the door. She’d barely opened it when a voice, scent and presence far too familiar introduced themselves quickly.

“Hi,” he panted.

Warm hands cupped her cheeks with urgency as he met her in a kiss. Wide eyes fell shut with a frown that lingered even when he parted.

“You’re supposed to be at the citadel, what the-?”

“Iggy found out we threw his stash. Said we weren’t leaving without getting more. Turns out you can fit a lot in that glove box,” Gladio came as close to blurting as he ever did.

A wide grin spread at the eyes that let him read. He knew how to see beyond the trees now; he’d learned his way through the forest, every track and patch of dappled light and shadow was no more threatening than empty sky or clouds.

_Tell her._

“I’ve gotta go, but-,” he began.

He wanted this to be just right. Not perfect, but theirs. He was sure. Gladio was as sure of this as he was of sunrises and nightfalls, of his own dutybound heart and body, and the soul wound with hers.

Rena pushed herself up onto her tiptoes and met him well with a kiss that distracted him from everything. They wrapped around each other, hands buried in hair and frowns gathered at the desperate, tender kiss. It would have to do, for both of them, for some time yet.

Gladio was in the speechless lull that came with parting when the smooth voice poured the honey-tones back into his skin and brought him colour again.

“Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

Gladio broke into a smile.

“Go on. Don’t keep them waiting.”

_Tell her._

He nodded, met her for the last kiss, so brief it was stolen, before he began to back away, unable to turn just yet. The words were in his mouth, bittersweet and clear.

It made his chest sink when he saw it. Stole every shred of breath from his lungs. It was claws in his heart and heat at the back of his eyes. Everything they’d worked for was being taken away.

He couldn’t read her anymore.

Gladio could see it. The walls being built. He’d almost forgotten they’d existed at all. She’d come so far, and at his coaxing. Every careful moment, every laugh and touch and kiss, had lured her from the depths of that forest. Now she was backing away as she stood still, hiding herself before the storm could seek her out and strike her down. It was for her own good, but it made every ounce of him ache to run back.

_Tell her._

_Don’t._

“You’ll be alright,” she said quietly, sure and certain. Gladio swallowed thickly and nodded.

“You and me, when I get back. We’ve got a lot of livin’ to do.” He grinned briefly, momentary happiness given by the thought of life on the other side of this trip.

Rena spoke after a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You and me.”

Something about the way she said it stuck in his mind. That and her eyes hiding again, becoming unreadable, haunted Gladio all morning. She was standing right in front of him, and already faded with every inch, yard or mile that stretched out between them. The separation had been a snake coiled, threatening, but only now revealing its size and beginning to move.

* * *

He could hear someone speaking but the words were blurred, as though a hand had swept across fresh ink. Low and grave. An airier voice replied. The voices were far too familiar to be so formal. It was as though he was in that strange phase of sleep where hearing is the primary sense, and it allowed him a perfectly clear sound of the words spoken in front of him.

“Thank you… Your majesty.”

“Take your leave, and go in the grace of the gods.”

_In the grace of the gods, huh?_

“…Right.”

The raven-blue blur in front of him moved. Turned. Became paler. Approached.

Gladio remembered himself and moved out of the way just in time, breath forced from his lungs in a shaky sound. He was about to follow, took one step and heard his boot clear on the polished marble of the throne room floor. The swift reminder of where he was made him turn back and bow his respects to the ailing king.

He was first down the steps, and somehow that final heavy shut of the door made it more real. Tangible. Gladio could feel this life closing behind him, even though it was Noct who would face greater changes. He’d return married and, gods willing, happy. Content, at the very least.

The bright blank light of the early summer morning bounced up from the Citadel steps. A curious tone, still considering their observation of a nerve-wracking moment, a first for him, no doubt, spoke up from behind him.

“Well… Princes will be princes.”

“So much for royal protocol.”

The brief reply Noctis had given didn’t sit well with Gladio. Compared to the careful goodbye he’d given his own father, strong hugs and patted backs, it seemed cold. Noct was many things, but he’d never been cold.

“Not like you had to deliver a formal address.”

_Not like you couldn’t have told her._

The thought threatened to trip Gladio as he followed the steps down onto the second lower set.

“Your highness!”

The hairs on the back of neck stood up. The churning in his gut was knocked out with two words and rendered dead weight by a voice that had once taught him the art of brutality, only to later paint it red over paler cheeks than his own.

_Don’t turn around._

At the sound of Noct’s lighter footsteps stopping, he turned and glanced at Ignis before fixing on the boy who would have to become a man on this trip.

“What now?” he asked, more in concern than impatience. Noctis began up the steps to meet his father halfway. Gladio’s brows pinched in a soft frown as he saw the shuffling figure struggling down the steps in a fashion far too laboured for a man his age. They climbed one or two steps before they stopped again.

Regis, ailing and grey in hair and skin, was fighting every ache of a body torn apart by a strength granted to it. He stretched out his hand when Noctis sprung to his side.

“I fear I have left too much unsaid. You place a great burden on those who would bear with you.”

Noct scoffed a light laugh. “You’re one to talk.”

He focused on his father with all the tiredness of a teen after a lecture. There was a softness to it though. He wasn’t ignoring Regis. He never had. Never would. The pale eyes of the king were brightened by the sunlight as they flicked to the three companions.

“I ask not that you guide my wayward son, merely that you remain at his side.”

Gladio barely heard it.

He was focused on the figure in red behind him. One that wore a healthy ruddiness and ursine strength, even as he hid from the sun and lurked in shade. Drautos was calm and steady at behind the king. Even from that small distance, he could tell that eyes as grey and green as the sea only ever left Regis to look at him and lock with an earthen tone.

The downed beast in Gladio’s gut stirred quickly and clawed. It scrabbled at his chest and cried, arched its back and bared its teeth at him.

He’d never forgotten that day with the Glaive. Over time, its details had become lone beads on a string, ones that told a story. He’d been too close. That hadn’t just been a fight, it had been far more than that. Some twisting, persuasion versus stubbornness with steel as a medium. The line on Drautos face, now as faded as the rest of his scars, was still bold enough that Gladio could see it. That was her line. He could feel the one Drautos had given her under his thumb. Every flinch in the beginning had made sense the more thought he’d given it.

Drautos had done something none of the rest of them had.

He’d scared her.

Now Gladio was leaving her alone in a city. Her address was on records. High ranking personnel would have access. That included Drautos. There was nothing to stop him, no implication he couldn’t dodge or throttle in a dark hallway. He’d barely even have to threaten.

_If he touches her, hope she kills him. She’d do it faster. Give him an animal’s death. No more than he’d deserve._

Ignis fell into a bow at his side, a motion that gathered Gladio attention. He broke his stare with Drautos.

“Indeed, your grace.”

“We’ll see the prince to Altissia if it’s the last thing we see,” he swore before he paid respect in another brief bow. A light rasp behind him spoke up.

“Yeah, what he said.”

Even Prompto wouldn’t be here if she needed him. As if she’d even tell him. They shared secrets, those two. Both outsiders in their own rights, the same path had been taken at different speeds. Without her, he wouldn’t have been at their sides; a fully-fledged, though still shaky on his wings, member of the Crownsguard. Whilst not as illustrious as the Glaive, there was honour and conviction in the Guard. People wanted swords but needed shields.

The thought of it made the sun burn at Gladio’s back, even through the leather, and made him clench his jaw until his teeth shifted. The marks on her. All the wrong kinds of bruised and bloody. Torn. Quiet.

_If he’d let her live._

_No. She’d kill him._

_Even if she didn’t, you would._

Again, a voice broke his cursing mind, one that spiralled, bristled and threatened the longer he locked on Drautos.

“Hate to break this up, but Cor’s got the motor running… Drautos, he’s in your hands.”

_They go anywhere near her, I’ll kill him myself._

“And another thing.” The words left Regis with a rare urgency. He’d always been so calm. Noctis turned over his shoulder and listened. “Do mind your manners around your charming bride to be.”

He began up the steps and stopped on a level with his father, in a bow so well-practiced it seemed mocking. The others offered a final bow and descended the steps. Gladio bristled at turning his back to Drautos. It felt as though he’d covered his eyes and pulled the bolt of a cage so large and dark, the beast only ever stirred lazily in the shadows, or rubbed against the bars in a civil manner. Once freed, would it be so courteous?

The morning passed crawled for Gladio, as though time itself had become a glacier after spending the last few days sprinting away from him as it thieved and pinched, itched enough to keep him awake at night. As the city gave way to Leide, there was a quiet in the car that wasn’t entirely content. Apprehensive. Daunted.

But they were prepared. She’d made sure of that. They knew how to handle themselves. How to handle each other. That had been her parting gift, months in the making and long before they knew of this fork in the road.

That didn’t mean he didn’t missed the mess of curls in front of him, winding over the back of the seat, gathered when pale hands disappeared into them to tame or just move them, and how they sprang when let loose.

Gladio distracted himself with the landscape, one arm on the side of the car as the region dried and dusted with every inch of smooth black road they put behind themselves. A small bunch of blue flashed weak and spindly from the scrub by the road, and momentarily enchanted him.

Forget-me-nots.

She’d rearranged the flowers countless times in between other odd jobs. Cleaning the kitchen. Bathroom. Even a hot bath hadn’t granted her the rest denied during a long, sleepless night. She’d tried to read, listen to music, cook, though she couldn’t eat. _Everything._ Anything to distract herself.

_Leave them alone. You’ll ruin them._

Rena turned away and folded her arms to keep them still. The breathed sigh made her frown. Her own vocalised finality was one that didn’t sit well.

Neither did the dogs.

They were more restless than her. Lying down only to sit up. Even Ochre didn’t get up to his usual mischiefs. He was careful and watchful, eyes on the window when they finally settled, curled close on the couch.

Brows gathered, she looked out of the window. Not a cloud in the sky. Typical Insomnian summer blue, the type of warm seas and ice-cream. Still, that didn’t mean the skies weren’t going to change. Rena was joined in her observations by the dogs. Each hand took an ear and played absently. When an unsure grumble left Seyna, she knew something was due.

“What?” she asked quietly as she crouched beside the dog. “We got some weather rolling in?”

Seyna whined again and slipped down to lie flat to the floor. When she did, Rena could see the bag hidden at the end of the sofa, invisible to anybody that failed to get past the coffee table. The sight of it made her harden herself, as though the wire scouring her gut could be changed for steel; for armour.

_Do it now._

She couldn’t bear it.

_Tomorrow, then._


	20. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fateful day of the treaty signing has finally come, and Rena's errands are made awry by the Imperial invasion. 
> 
>  
> 
> The time has come to stop living, and to be a survivor again.

Late morning was a time she rarely witnessed in the apartment. Rena had only seen the light bathe the bricks a handful of times, the way it revealed every scratch and scuff on the old sofa and deepened the patina of the leather. Memories lined the place like feathers to a half-finished nest. There was little but revelations, and all had been made too late.

Crouched low, she tightened her boot laces. Their leather was more stained than scraped; dirt peeked out from the seams as the dark stain of blood splashed over the russet leather. Ochre continually nudged at her head, whining as he fidgeted as though the floor was burning under his paws. Rena gently elbowed him away.

“Go on, you’ve been out,” she groaned quietly.

Both dogs were close at her heels when she stood, shouldered her rucksack, and looked about the room. Everything that could fit in a cardboard box had been packed away. Life had been nothing but cardboard boxes recently. They’d filled sleepless hours nicely. They were stacked beside the sofa, by the window and on the bed.

Everything.

Her bag was too light to feel so heavy. What little she wasn’t having taken to a thrift store was laid on the coffee table.

They’d come looking. She was sure of it.

She’d spent the last few days writing her final recipes, half ideas she’d had and ones he would take and flourish, like a plain dish of rice somehow elevated and developed by what was given to it. Ignis had a gift for that. A week ago, a smile would’ve pushed onto her face at the thought of his kitchen. It was a sanctuary and a studio. A place of artistry and refined practice. She knew it well. The book had once been svelte and smooth, though now the pages wore the tiny stains of their art; dustings of salt and spice, pressed herbs and where to find them in certain regions, the spatters of sauces when writing their creation had allowed them to bubble too vigorously.

Next to that smaller, thinner book, though it was thicker now, the simple leather cradled translucent plastic pockets. All were dark at the edges, until the last third. There were still spaces, though she wouldn’t be the one to fill them. Someone else would. It wasn’t as though hers were that spectacular anyway. Prompto would find the album a heavy weight, far heavier than when he’d given it. Rena doubted he would keep it. More likely he’d stash a few of the photographs and give the rest to Gladio. He’d try to, anyway.

She couldn’t feel anything when she looked at the necklace, and that was for the best.

Its beauty had always been in simplicity. Dark silver pooled, draped in misery, on the table. He’d given her a harvest, and all the potential that came with it. Now the wheat was being left, and the field fallow, in some turning away from the grain won through toil. The vine leaf would give no grapes, no wine. That pearl, dim but glowing, would be the closest thing she gave to a tear. Hard, though it looked soft. It was silent and hidden, perfectly still.

Tears would be shed, but they wouldn’t be hers. Tiny pearls that were kept from the rest of the world would flow over tanned cheeks before catching in his stubble, unable to move on without being forcibly wiped away. She hoped they’d only spill once.

Rena looked back to the dogs and tied the flannel around her waist. She wasn’t wearing her uniform. Not even her training gear. Dark jeans, a loose grey tank and the shirt would be enough. After one last look at each of the objects, out the window and to the dogs, she turned her back and made for the door.

Seyna tried to barge out past her but was caught and pushed back, gentle but firm. As Rena backed out of the door, she gave the dogs a few calm words of reassurance.

“Back in an hour or two, then we’ll go, alright?”

Ochre warbled as he sat reluctantly. Seyna stayed standing and grumbled at her. Something had put those dogs out of sorts. Rena pinned it down to weather. An out-of-season storm, perhaps. Something that had rolled in on the sea from far shores. She closed the door and locked it for the second last time.

As she descended the stairs of the tenement, its scents seemed more obvious. There was something quiet about today. The deep breath before the plunge below frigid waters that would drive knives into the skin and threaten to choke the warm creature foreign to them. There was something final about today. As though it were more than her world that was changing.

Rena cleared her throat and took a deep breath of the close, cold air of the lower floors, as condensation dampened the side of the concrete steps and what little light could be found came through crack and badly boarded up windows. The smell of cheap spilled liquor, rust and mildew was cool and smooth.

It was stolen by the warmer air outside. Summer had arrived, and it burned too hot in the city. She needed space. Time. Work. More than she’d ever had before. The few apartments that kept window boxes poured with drooping flowers that struggled in the heat. It hit the pavement below her feet and bounced back up in stagnant heat as she put in her headphones and deafened herself to the already silent street.

Rena didn’t see any people until she was at the edge of the city centre.

Then she saw nothing but people.

Crowds, as far and thick as she could see, shifted like sand. As she worked her way closer to the Crownsguard headquarters, they drew closer. Rena shouldered past countless people with an endless string of apologies and pardons begged. She’d never seen so many people. Thousands, tens of thousands, poured between skyscrapers and office buildings like water between rocks. The air was hotter simply due to mass presence.

They were like schools of fish, transfixed on a lure hundreds of feet above them on the huge screens of the very heart of the city. In a rare moment when her way wasn’t blocked by other people for at least a foot of space, she glanced up at a screen. It was an aerial shot of the Citadel, and how she shone in the summer sun. After dodging another person, she glanced up again. It was darker. A room inside the Citadel, one she didn’t recognise but knew it belonged. There was so much black marble in that building, it would be a surprise if anywhere else in Eos had more than a chopping board.

“Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry,” she said quickly, as much a reaction as flinching away.

She kept side-stepping and excusing her way through the crowds. There were two screens either side of the Citadel steps. The crowds gathered in front were kept in place by helmeted members of the Guard, like buoys along the edge of a net. They defined space and held the line. Those lines were laced throughout the city and its walls. Peace was to be maintained. Peace was the focus. Every last sworn member of the Crownsguard had been stationed; the Glaive were the first to be called if things went south.

One caught her eye. Soft caramel hues that defied their sharp focus.

Castor was stationed on the inner side of the right-hand screen. He fixed on Rena after a moment and offered a nod, before crossing his eyes in jest. She shook her head with a muted smile and climbed the steps to headquarters.

Cool, conditioned air revealed just how much the heat had gotten to her. Her skin was soft and slightly damp as the sweat of a walk in the heat clung to it. Rena faced the stairs. Both sets began in the middle of the cavernous white atrium, went straight forwards, then split off in opposite directions like antlers. Rena chose left and followed it. Once on the upper level, she followed the gallery round to the darker hallways where doors stationed with name plaques stood still and sombre. She knew the way by now, but she’d never been called to this office before.

Rena stopped at the door and looked at it for a second. Every step she’d taken was counting down to the end, and every time she read the plaque.

_Mar. C. Leonis_

She knocked. Three, steady beats. After counting to thirty, with no response, she tried again. Thirty more. Nothing.

On a whim, she reached for the wooden handle, held by two elaborate brass filigree braces, and pushed. The heavy door clicked open. He’d been expecting her. Rena peeked in cautiously.

The office was small for a man of such high rank. It was empty of living things, save the dark leaves and pale teardrop blooms of the plant on his desk. Rena slipped inside and slowly stepped towards the dark mahogany desk, simple yet bold in its carpentry. The large window to its side let in enough light to reveal the black parquet on the floor and the simple walls. One held a katana and its shirasaya below, ornate, sharp and fine. It was a room of strong, dark lines, befitting the man that commanded from within it.

On the desk, matching her presence as a thing out of place, was a small stack of papers, her name on the first page. The plant guarding it made her breathe a tired sigh. A peace lily sat upon the marshal’s desk. A simple contradiction, or perhaps wishful thinking. They were closer to peace than they’d ever been.

Rena pulled open a drawer and plucked a black fountain pen from the well-organised stack. She uncapped it and turned to the first blank box marked with an ‘x’. Some ghostly hand stayed hers. It was a dark stirring in her gut that slowed but didn’t stop her. The sharp nib of the pen touched the thick paper as ink spilled like blood.

It ripped across the page, metal tearing through, when a resounding crash came from outside. That brief and eternal moment of silence fell heavy. Then screams. Rena had thrown the pen across the room and smashed it against a wall.

She lurched towards the window, hands planted on the sill, and watched as smoke cleared from the screens and people ran. Rena didn’t know people could run like that. She’d only ever seen animals run for their lives. There was a desperation in scrambling limbs and wide eyes.

The citadel steps were gouged and rough from the explosion, blackened by the blast. All of the blood in her body pooled in her legs and fed the urge she’d been resisting for days.

_Run._

Rena shot from the room and stayed on the upper level. The long, dark corridor was completely empty, even as alarms screeched above her. The lighting had failed, power blown by the explosion. If it was dead here, the Citadel would have no power.

She had other concerns. The stairs appeared all too fast as she leapt down them, one flight at a time until she was underneath ground level. She sprinted to the armoury. Its heavy doors were steel, several inches thick, and locked.

“Fuck’s sake!” she hissed under her breath. “Please don’t be using them, Prom, I swear to the fuckin’ gods…”

Rena dipped her hand into the armiger and scrambled to find them. The pistol was in her grasp. She ripped it from the smoky waters that seemed all too cool and soft for the weapons they concealed, pressed her side to the door and stood back to fire a shot through the top of the lock, down at the floor. The impact shook through the door as heat rose from the ruined lock.

She shouldered in and looked about the armoury. Cavernous and empty. She cast the pistol back, just in case he needed it. Rena gave a string of bitter curses as she tore weapons lockers open and searched for something, _anything._ She almost broke her fingers when she snatched a rifle from one of the lockers. Four boxes of ammunition were thrown into her rucksack, one into her pocket.

The small square lockers at the either end of the hall systematically had their doors dented by the butt of the rifle as she found all of them empty.

Until one.

Keys.

The single keychain was a written version of the registration. Rena held them in a crushing grip and raced from the armoury, threw herself down another two flights of stairs and flew along another, colder corridor. The lights were out. The only illumination was momentary flashes of red from the spinning alarms, as though the blood spilled above were flooding down. The depth of that space roared when another bomb shook the city above.

Rena hit the door at the end shoulder first and threw it open, still sprinting into the hidden depot. Dark eyes relied on what little light they could find to read the plates.

“Please don’t be a tank, please don’t be a tank, _please don’t be a fucking tank.”_

Boots scuffed to a halt when she double checked one of the plates. Rena locked on the keychain in her hand.

_CG12 4K1_

Rena looked up.

“You fuckin’ beauty.”

Rena hauled the door of the jeep open. Discreetly armoured, it was used to escort overseas guests or representatives. Her jeans slipped over the smooth leather as she threw herself inside, slammed the door and turned the ignition.

“Fuckin’ _please_ , c’mon! Don’t be a piece of shit!” she urged through gritted teeth.

At last, the smooth thrum of the engine had her leaning her head against the wheel.

“Thank the fuckin’ Astrals. Sweet Shiva…” she trailed, dropping the handbrake and throwing the automatic into drive.

The car screeched over smooth concrete, leaving a short stain of black tire marks. Headlights only revealed concrete pillars when they were dangerously close. She swerved through them, car leant left and right as she raced for the exit.

Glass shattered over the back seat. Rena’s sharp gasp came as she checked the mirror. She could see lights, couldn’t make out the vehicles behind them. She pressed on, pedal to the floor as the dial climbed. Rena held the wheel steady with one hand and hauled her seatbelt on with the other. They were drawing closer. Each tense pulse of blood through her veins threatened to lift her leg from the pedal. She forced it down all the same.

The boxy red sign above it was revealed, but the door was shut.

“Oh for fuck’s _fucking_ sake…”

Rena was headed straight for the door. Her window was halfway down when the glass shattered.

“Yeah, thanks for the fuckin’ help!”

She found the pistol faster this time and cast it into her hand. She had a hundred feet. Maybe. Rena stilled herself and aimed for the pressure pad that could open the door. It was no bigger than her palm.

“Don’t. Fucking. Miss,” she ground out between gritted teeth. It was a straight line to the exit, with bullets pinging past her.

The first of her own shots missed. Rena cursed and glanced at the rearview. She had some distance on them; she could lose some. Her foot eased off the pedal. In a delicate balance between staying far enough ahead and slow enough to give the door time to open, _if_ she could land a shot, Rena was cursing everything in existence.

The second shot hit and left the pad crackling.

“Oh thank fuck- no, c’mon. C’mon, c’mon, _c’mon!”_

She picked her speed carefully, careering towards the exit as the door lifted. Slowly. It was crawling as she barrelled towards it, eyes busy between the growing lights both ahead and behind her. One menacing, one promising. Another shot made the back mirror burst but stay in place.

“Fuck off!”

The exit was drawing nearer, but the door was still low. Too low. She had fifty feet.

Thirty.

A bullet smashed her wing mirror. They were blinding her.

Twenty.

Rena’s knuckles went white at the wheel.

Ten.

Another hit obliterated her rear window.

“Oh fuck…”

The hard steel of the bottom of the door scraped and clawed at the roof of the jeep, metal screaming as she forced the car free and was blinded by the brightness of a dark day. She could still barely see when she glanced at the mirror. The first dark nose of one of her assailants had just appeared from the darkness of the depot when the metal door crashed down on it, hinges weakened. Rena’s mouth fell open. It jolted again when another of the hunters smashed into its rear.

She flicked her eyes to the base gates. Closed. Chain link. A heavy boot slammed the pedal to the floor and briefly checked the dial. She’d need some speed. Rena fixed on the gate. A deafening boom from behind her demanded her attention. She’d only just fixed on the black cloud of smoke pouring from the exit she’d destroyed when the heat of the explosion made the skin on the back of her neck prickle.

“ _Holy. Fucking. Shit.”_

Her incredulities were interrupted by the high chink of the chain fence as the jeep tore the panel clean off and raced out over it. She pulled her foot from the pedal, got halfway through a turn before slamming it down again and forcing the car to claw her away.

The city streets were mayhem. People everywhere. Cars abandoned on pavements as civilians were herded into the subway by guards. It was chaos. The screams were constant and shifting as sand into the abyss. Faces were bloodied, bodies too broken to walk were dragged and shrieking people torn from those fallen silent. Faceless soldiers of a uniform she’d only ever been briefed on fired at anything that took their fancy.

Rena joined one of the slip roads onto the main highways of the city. She dodged the cars that were already crashed, and a pile that despaired in a plume of smoke. As roads opened up in front of her, she was given a choice.

_East or west?_

_West. Roads’ll only get busier. Imperials are coming from that direction. Run closer to run away._

_That’s batshit. Do it anyway._

Rena took a sharp left and wound down from the highways. Once free of the skyscrapers, the dark shapes that loomed overhead and made a slow, deliberate march for the city centre clouded a clear sky. One force opposed them. In a thick burning band that cast a ring in the horizon, the wall was broken, smashed by that clawing ripple before it fell like glass.

It had been a long time since she hadn’t had the wall above her head.

The ruined jeep was thrown around the sharp corners of the city, dodged people who couldn’t move fast enough before she left the main road and wound her way into a quieter neighbourhood. Large houses with high walls and formidable gates faced each other on these streets, as though chattering and ignoring what had happened behind them.

Rena threw the jeep into a driveway and herself from the car. She took the front steps two at a time and lifted her fist to knock on the door. It opened before she landed a beat.

A small figure, grey-haired over a red checked shirt was facing away when he stepped from the door before he stopped dead and dropped the ball under his arm. The rounder amber eyes behind him smiled brightly before they looked up.

Beading with sweat, pale, wild-haired and sharp-eyed, Rena was not a good sign. Iris’ face fell. As she ran her eyes over her, one arm was painted red. A blackened graze marked the rod of that curtain as it cut across her upper arm. Talcott’s eyes were wide at the bloody stranger. The smooth voice was certain and sombre.

“We need to go. Now.”

Iris managed a weak noise as her brows gathered. “Wha- why? What happe-?”

A shuffle within the house came with a leathery voice, as wrinkled by age as the man that used it.

“Lady Iris! Lady I- oh! There you are! There’s been a… a…” Jared stopped, wheezing when he finally reached the door. Iris immediately ducked under his arm to hold him up. Shining black eyes met a deep green. What blood had risen to flush his cheeks drained upon seeing Rena.

“It’s true then. He’s-?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, eyebrows risen as she shook her head. “But we’ve got to go. Now.”

“Grandpa-,” the young boy gaped, sticking close to Jared’s side as the old man locked sage eyes with an honest pair.

“Do as she says.”

“What?!”

“Talcott,” he chastened. Dark eyes locked back on Rena. “I don’t know who you are, but-.”

“Rena. She’s a friend of Gladdy’s. Crownsguard.”

This seemed to instil some confidence in the old man. The weighted silence on the porch was filled by the warped sounds of distant explosions. He looked at her and straightened up as much as a withered form would allow.

“Lead on.”

“Alright,” she nodded.

Rena looped an arm around Jared as she and Iris helped him to the wreck of a jeep. It had the advantage of being armoured, though the windows had left something to be desired. When she opened the rear door and held it for Jared to get in, one of the bullets rolled from the car. It was at least four inches long. No glass would’ve stood a chance.

Talcott wedged himself between Iris and Jared as Rena took the wheel, and reversed back, then onto the road. She followed the suburbs, taking the city in a wide circle as the houses got smaller and the walls became fences, then railings that offered no privacy and little protection. There was no wall. Somehow the sky felt lighter, as though the void were reeling back to strike down. At the crest of a hill, the sea was revealed on the horizon.

“Uhh, Rena? Why are we going east?” Iris’ voice shook. Rena glanced at her in the rearview as she raced through disturbingly quiet neighbourhoods.

“Need to pick something up.”

“Y- do you _really_ need it?”

Green eyes locked with amber. Her tone was darker that her brother’s, but just as soft. Rena took a stilling breath and nodded.

“Yeah.”

The bricks of the east side shook with crumbled dust at the drop of every bomb. The sky was darkening, as though the wall had shattered to release smoke and let it swathe the city, to coil above it like the snake from the grass, great and cold as it blotted out the sun and let ash rain down. It choked them. Squeezed life out with every moment.

Rena had to consciously loosen her grip on the wheel, unclench her jaw and breathe. When she drove past the park, smoke rose from it like some ghost of the kings of yore risen and wispy as it wailed with the burning trees for the beating Insomnia was taking, like a crying child watching their parents fight. She turned away from the inferno as it became the skeleton of a place she’d once known, and towards a familiar street.

Rena pulled up outside the tenement and grabbed her bag from the passenger seat. She spoke over her shoulder as watchful eyes scanned the street ahead, then behind in the mirror.

“Be right back.”

She shut the door carefully, just in case. Rena pulled her key from her pocket and let herself in, before she raced up to her apartment and unlocked the door. The dogs were nowhere to be see. Glass crunched under her boot. The vase had been thrown by the tremors; gladioli and forget-me-nots splayed on the floor as they drowned in the very substance used to keep them alive.

The objects on the coffee table had been shaken as well, pushed together in a mess. Rena threw the recipe book, photo album and necklace into her rucksack and let out a two-note whistle. It came shakier than she wanted it to.

A hesitant bark came from deeper in the bald apartment. She whistled again.

“C’mere.”

Both dogs peeked around the bedroom door. Once they recognised both sound and sight of her, they came sprinting over, yipping and whining as they shook, tails between their legs.

“Let’s go,” she guided, holding the door open as they followed her out and sprinted down the stairs, turning back every few seconds to check she was there. Once out on the street, they stuck close. Rena opened the passenger door and sent the dogs in, first Seyna onto the seat, then Ochre into the footwell. She put her rucksack in with them and rounded to the driver’s side.

Once in, she glanced at the dogs, then her passengers who frowned at Ochre and Seyna as they curled up and kept their heads low.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Rena continued her circle, widening out to stay near the edge of the city. _North. Take the north gate. Cas…_

Castor had been beside the screens, his engagement band underneath armoured gloves. Fletch was likely on the other side of the city or… Had been.

There were more ‘had been’s and ‘if’s than ever. There _had been_ a dinner planned tonight. Drinks. To celebrate the peace. There would still be fighting, but less of it. At least there’d be bodies to bury, not just names and reports to close the door on a life. There _had been_ a promise of peace. There _had been_ a chance.

It had been dashed. Struck away.

Rena shook the thought of Castor, Fletch, _any_ of them, bodies broken and eyes glassy, from her head, though it bloodied and became clearer. She simply allowed herself it as she drove on, dodging crashed cars as the smoke shrouded the centre from the suburbs.

Once she’d joined the northbound highway, she held the wheel steady with one hand and pulled her rucksack into her lap with the other. It was only then she noticed a small hand hiding under Seyna’s chin as the dog licked at the wrist. It was taken back to its owner after she spotted it. Rena glanced at Talcott in the rear view as he tried to keep his eyes in his lap. After meeting the nervous flicks in the mirror, Rena fixed her eyes on the road.

“It’s alright,” Rena assured, voice low over the deep booms still swelling from the heart of the city as it fell into atrophy. The hand returned and found quiet solace in the dark fur and warmth of the dog.

The thrown together contents of the rucksack, from its more recent additions to the things she’d initially packed this morning under the pretence she’d be leaving, but under very different circumstances, guided her hand to the base of the bag and the small black box, no bigger than her palm. She pulled it out, unclipped the rough plastic latch with one hand and pulled out the earpiece as she overtook another car.

It was cold in her ear but didn’t take long to warm. Rena pressed the button and listened to the steady beep as the device started up. She gave it ten seconds to settle. In that time, she fixed on a rare and open stretch of the highway. She’d have to be quick.

Rena delved into the bag to find the cold, intricate silver that so deserved to be warm. Once she’d overtaken yet another minivan, crammed full of the belongings of an entire family or maybe more, she took her hands from the wheel and worked the clasp with a practiced skill. As always, the weight of it settled her. There was no denying that it was heavy, but that only made it more real. Rena lined the pearl and vine leaves to its place, two and a half inches below her clavicle before putting a hand back on the wheel and moving the rucksack back down next to Ochre as he curled up quietly in the footwell.

The gate had been opened, though not soon enough. A swarm of cars had crashed and crumpled at one side, slowing what few people had been lucky enough to survive and make it this far. The thought of the western gate made Rena grit her teeth. It was the largest by far and had full access to the roads into the rest of the mainland, sewn to it like ribbons to a maypole. A crash there would choke the city and kill half of them.

Rena swapped hands, pressed the earpiece button and held it down. It buffered through channels, cut by static, before landing on the one she wanted.

_“Report.”_

“Lauritas, R.”

_“What?! You’re supposed to be-.”_

“I was about to, sir. Proverbial hit the fan.”

The rough sigh from the other end of the line was more ragged than she’d ever known from him.

_“Current status. Report.”_

“Alive. Uninjured. Borrowed one of the jeeps, sir. Just about to leave through the north gate. Four passengers.”

_“Civilians?”_

“I’ve picked up the flowers, sir,” she said simply.

Her eyes locked on Iris in the back as she watched Rena hold the conversation and work the wheel with one hand that flicked between steering, indicators and hovering over the horn when someone pulled out in front of her.

Cor was silent on the other end of the line, hand to his ear as he held the call and breathed sigh of relief. It came rough and crackled as distance and smoke began to pester the reception. That single codeword had taken a weight from his shoulders, though thousands of others remained.

_“Directive, private?”_

Rena took a breath and considered her options. She had all of Lucis to use, to hide them in, but each spot she considered was either so remote they’d starve, or so obvious that hiding in plain sight would do no good. She needed somewhere in the middle of the road. Somewhere far and big enough to hide them amongst others, refugees and locals alike.

“Taking them to market, sir. Should be nice to sit back for a while.”

_“Remember your protocol.”_

“Yes sir,” she said, her hand leaving the wheel to press the button to open her window. The fresh cloud of smoke and burning, the sharp clawing scent of inferno clung to the air and made it heavy, as though the sky itself would fall. She was about to release the earpiece button when the deep voice, that had always come from low in his chest as though it hid behind his heart, spoke up.

_“Rena?”_

She frowned. “Sir?”

_“Be careful.”_

Rena let the marshal’s words pulse in her mind with every pound of her rising headache. She opened her mouth to respond, closed it, then opened it to speak again.

“You too, sir.”

_“Over.”_

“Over.”

Rena let go of the button, freed the earpiece from her ear and cast it out of the window. She pulled the glass back up and drove as the light faded far too early for a summer day.

“Turn your phones off.”

Rena reached into her bag and pulled out her own. The lockscreen of Ochre and Seyna playing made her glance aside. They were like different dogs. Sombre. Quiet. Still. Offering what comfort they could to others and themselves. Once into the phone, Rena felt the last shred of an exhale leave her and her lungs still as she saw the homescreen.

She’d meant to change it.

He’d taken it, captured that one simple innocence, a few weeks before. The spring sunshine suited both. It brought his colours back, deepened them to rich tones while it gave her the marks of freckled cheeks. He’d done one of his favourite things; nudged past the curls that fell across her face and pressed a kiss as sweet and deep as the scent of honey to her cheek until she’d blushed and failed to hold back a smile. It had been one of her favourite things too. The scratch of his stubble, a strong jaw and soft lips, how close he’d been.

Before she could stop it, his messages from today appeared. Each hit her like a punch to the ribs, but she’d already closed her mind to the pain. She could feel the impacts like echoes. Audible, but they weren’t the original sounds. She was too hidden to hear that.

It wasn’t pain; it was just there.

_Mornin’ x_

_Got the car fixed, turns out Blondie didn’t completely wreck it. This time. xD_

_It’s past lunch, you eaten yet? x_

_[Missed Call: Gladio]_

_You okay?_

_[Missed Call: Gladio]_

_[Missed Call: Prom]_

_Back on the road. Call me when you’re free. x_

Rena closed her mind to it and swiped through her settings to switch off anything that could be used to track her. She pushed her phone back into the bag and flicked to the passengers again. A heart shaped face with soft features was lit up by the cold, pale blue of a screen as her thumbs tapped at the phone.

“Now, Iris.”

Large, watering brown eyes looked up at her. Her lips trembled around a response, an argument, a reason. Dark hues gave nothing. Sincerity, at most.

“Now,” she said softly.

Iris switched her phone off midway through writing a text and clutched it with a grip hard enough to distract her from thoughts that could cause floods and conjure tears. The changing scenery, new to her, and she to it, both tore her apart and held a focus that kept scattering like dropped marbles or smashed crockery.

Rena fixed on the road and leant back into her seat. Her grip on the wheel stayed tight, and only to turn white-knuckled whenever a large, dark shape passed overhead. Somehow it was worse than before. They weren’t heading towards the city. They weren’t reinforcements.

They were retreating, in dribs and drabs, as soon as their passengers, if they could be called that, were finished with their work. It had been that easy, then. That quick and effective. Like luring a fish, sinking in the hook, hauling it out and crunching a knife into its head. The spilled guts of citizens- _refugees,_ were staining out into the world, messy and splattered like roe from salmon. The bliss of swimming upstream to union had come at a cost, one that had bought them very little.

As she forced the jeep up a hill outside the city, Rena glanced in her rear view mirror. Behind her silent passengers and the jagged borders of the rear windscreen, the hillside the road clung to gave way as the road straightened. Smoke and fire was all that came from the city, shrouded it from the sun above. Fresh clouds of dust and rubble were thrown as though some invisible titan were stamping the city into oblivion.

Insomnia had fallen.

Rena took a deep breath and kept one hand on the wheel, the other propped her up by her elbow against the window. She let the cool glass soothe the graze to her shoulder and fixed her eyes on an empty road as it stretched north.

The heaths and moors of Cavaugh were ghostly. Pale grasses were tough and seemed to have never grown at all, as though they were as hard and eternal as the rocks that jutted out between them, dark, rough and angular. The entire region had never recovered from the ravages of an attack thirty years before. She’d been a beauty, sharp and harsh, but a wonder nonetheless. Dramatic. Ruined by those fateful nights of fire, the salt and sea of the tough north-eastern region had crystallised and made her hard. Like a woman scorned, she sat motionless on the bedroom chair, too sickened and scarred by the events of the marital bed.

Rena was glad to leave the region of pale ground, smoke skies and shifting horizons of shadows behind. She looped south and kept as far from the city and close to the coast as she could. Even from miles away, the lack of glowing wall didn’t bode well. It really was broken. The smoke carried the distant glow of the fire and set the world into foreboding red. The final sight of the bridge made her mouth fall open. It was too quiet. Eight cars were on it, and only two were moving. No guards were at the beginning when she passed through, and none were at the end.

Leide almost seemed a relief. The skies cleared as she went west, as smoke moved faster than news. They met a false dawn of pale blue skies and clouds shadowed by a sun that had already left them. Cool air wafted in through the broken windows. As the scrub lay low ridges rose like ribs, swallowing them into the outlands. There was one option; drive. Her eyes flicked to the fuel dial. Three quarters, and it was not a small tank.

_Gods fuckin’ bless the Crownsguard._

Rena let her hand rest on the pearl and gently traced the leaves and smooth orb. It was a habit. There had been so many she was meant to break. Habits, tendencies, the nuances of existence and life. She was meant to leave them behind in that apartment, with the books and the necklace.

There were a lot of things that were _meant_ to have happened.

Rena kept driving and held her speed steady, but enough to put road between her, the ruined city and what awaited them. The soft sound of something to her right gathered her attention. She glanced aside and saw a head of short ashen hair. Rena swapped hands at the wheel and reached with the other to gently push a slumped Talcott back upright until he settled between Jared and Iris.

There were lights ahead. Bright and red at the edges, it died down. Rena killed her own headlights and slowed the car to a crawl. There were other cars alongside it. Four. Their headlights were still on and threw pools of light over the metal of the engine. They’d been stopped. Rena leant forwards, wrists on the wheel, as she squinted through the darkness.

It was the same type of engine that had swarmed the city. She felt as though she’d swallowed a weight. Rena picked up enough speed to make a u-turn and crawled away. Being heard was too much of a risk.

She only meant to glance at the mirror.

Dark shapes, faceless with harsh lines, they were almost human, pulled doors open and lined the passengers up. Scraped, bruised and bloodied, they kept their hands behind their heads and knelt as the imperials briefly searched the cars. They stopped behind their line of Lucians.

At this speed, the engine was still quiet enough to hear the shots. She was still close enough to see the blood spray over the cars and the bright flashes of the guns.

Before she tore her eyes away from the mirror, she glanced at her passengers. Jared had fallen asleep, with Talcott cuddled into his side. Iris lifted her head and blinked slowly. She rubbed at her swollen eyes and looked out of the window. What little sleep she’d been allowed had been haunted. Iris had never seen the outlands before, not in person. In textbooks and on the internet, the news, yes. In reality, they seemed much sharper. Darker. She could smell the grit in the air and the gentle reminder of mortality loomed by every rock, river and blade of grass.

Iris looked at Rena in the mirror as she drove on, indicated left and turned up a hill as the rode slipped into a canyon.

“Where are we going?”

Dark eyes met younger, rounder versions of those she knew best. Rena followed the twisting road as the bare rock grew around it and threatened to snap together at any moment and crush them all like the jaws of some patient beast. She took a deep breath and met Iris’ watering eyes again.

“Lestallum,” she nodded. The tears welling in amber eyes were as salted as the waters and breezes that would have met the other.

They’d be at Galdin by now. If they were lucky, they’d have already caught the evening boat. Altissia by morning. _If_ the Empire hadn’t strangled the port with its own ropes. _If_ they weren’t going to be hunted down at sea. The thought of the starry waters as a final resting place was one that brought a worrying peace.

_Leviathan, be gentle with them. Please._

She’d never been one for prayers. They’d never listened to her, nor she to them. She hoped that if the gods didn’t bide a heathens words, that they’d listen for the sake of others.

Rena met tired eyes as they looked out of the window under fine, gathered brows. A momentary shiver made Iris tremble. Rena turned another hairpin bend, knuckles turning white at the prospect of what lay beyond it. When the road was empty and straight until the sharp corner at the end that would take them further up the mountain wrinkled by a canyon, Rena moved fast.

She untied the knotted sleeves holding the flannel around her and leant forwards to gather it around her hand. The fabric made soft and crinkled by use was held out to Iris. Rena moved it slightly, just to get her attention and nodded in the mirror before turning her focus back to the road. She took the shirt and wrapped herself up in it, wrinkled sleeves gathered around her hands as she hid in the fabric and sniffed quietly.

“You ever been?” she asked.

Iris’ eyes widened at the question as she flicked up to focus dark eyes under an unreadable expression. She shook her head, then forced out a weak syllable that made her damn herself.

“No.”

Rena settled back in her seat and began to pick glass from the broken window with her free hand as the road straightened towards a tall, dusty peak, lined with clawed shrubs and rocks that looked as though they’d pounce at any moment, and other that seemed able to be loosened by the simple passing of the car, enough to roll down and shove them from the road.

Nothing moved but them.

“I think you’ll like it,” Rena offered quietly, keeping her voice low as the others slept. Iris sniffed, cleared her throat quietly, and watched the young woman in the mirror as she flicked between focusing on the road ahead, behind and Iris herself.

“What’s it like?”

Rena took a deep breath and shook her head.

“Busy. Especially this time of year. The markets are like nothing else. Flowers, fruit, vegetables, _chilis_. It’s hot, though. There’s a couple places that do snowcones?”

The unusual quiet from the backseat filled the lull given. The rising of her tone was one that Iris subconsciously recognised as a question, and one that helped her focus.

“I like snowcones.”

Any other time, she wouldn’t have forgiven herself for a response so lame. In truth, she was barely in her own mind. Rena could see the absence beginning. It was one that could be protection, if it was understood and known, a practiced technique. For Iris, it would grant her a few hours of a shell, if she was lucky, before it would crack and hurt all over again. It wasn’t a brick wall around the individual, it was shield. It had to be fluid and moved to the position that required it most.

“Yeah? What’s your favourite flavour?” Rena asked, eyebrows pinched but raised. Iris’ frown gathered softly as she chewed her bottom lip.

“Uhm… strawberry. Or just berry flavours,” she nodded. Rena purposefully softened her expression and let herself breathe.

“Those are good. There’s a really good blue raspberry one at one of the stands, I’ll point it out to you. I think my favourite one is…” Rena clicked her tongue in enunciated thought, anything to keep Iris from the jagged corners of her own mind. She’d be traumatised enough, she didn’t need her head running circles around her. “Cola. Cherry cola.”

“Oh,” she said softly.

The silence from the backseat lasted almost long enough for Rena to breach it again. She’d only allow that quiet if Iris was asleep and so far, she was as wide-eyed as she’d ever seen her and for all the wrong reasons. Just as the darkness in her own head began to seep closer, like dark waves on a shore, she spoke up and clung to what she could hear.

“What else is there? In Lestallum?”

Rena focused as the road lost its canyons for tall sparse trees and the twisting roads of north-western Leide. They’d never recovered from a wildfire a century before. No rain had left the trees as sooty skeletons, ones that would crumble into ash if touched. The white scars of embers and black blasts lightning had left by the tallest of them and on huge boulders, four times the size of the jeep, stood out at night.

The sky, untouched by it all, impassive and turning a blind eye for all its stars, was velvet overhead. Iris was stunned by the clarity of it. Millions of stars, they’d never been so stark and bold. She could see the dusty smoke of galaxies as they blushed with their distant freckles. The lack of the tidal sheen of the kings wall overhead both reminded her of the vast difference earth and heaven, and simultaneously brought her closed. This was _real._ Crafted by creation itself.

“There’s the view over the meteor. You can see it on a clear day, but I think it looks better at night. Then you can see the glow on it. Uhh… there’s EXENERIS? The power plant? Mostly women that work there.”

Iris perked up. Rena allowed herself a half smile.

“Really?”

“Mhm… You got yourself a little agenda?”

Iris smiled hesitantly. She played with the sleeves of the flannel, continuously fastening and unfastening the buttons at the cuffs.

“Don’t be shy about it,” she encouraged quietly. Rena cocked her head before continuing. “But don’t shove it in people’s faces either. There’s nothing wrong with anything until you force it on someone, alright?”

Iris nodded quickly, as though it would stamp the small wisdom into her mind. “Okay.”

“Good. Now get some sleep. We’ve got a way to go yet.”

The smooth, low tone came as soft as the night sky, and as foreboding. There was a distance to the woman sitting in front of her, one that usually came with age. Somehow, she’d run it while she was young, on far shorter legs and paid her prices for it.

As far as Iris was concerned, she could do it too, though she had no idea how to run that race. But a spider wasn’t taught how to make a web. Birds don’t trust the branches, but their wings. Fish swim with the tide until it’s time to go against it.

The quiet strength that had initially terrified her was one that steadied Iris now.

“Okay.”

As the silence rolled in and curled around Rena, she kept a hand on the wheel and the fingertips of the other on the pearl. The thicker trees and heavier canopies of Duscae’s northern hills appeared on the horizon; nothing more than the rumples of used sheets and the lines of the body beneath it. She hid a yawn in her wrist and glanced aside to the dogs.

Ochre had fallen asleep, head lifted to rest on the seat while Seyna curled around it, her own muzzle pressed to the side of his. There was simple innocence in closeness. The thought of how scared they’d been, alone and still not entirely used to the city, huddled under her bed as though it’d protect them. It was unfair and cruel because they’d all seen it coming, but still they’d chosen to trust. She let them lie and rubbed at her temple as she drove on.

Rena needed the trees. Something to hide her. Something above her head that would let her disappear from anything passing overhead. If they were stopped she’d manage a few, but open field had never been her element. She needed places to hide. Ambush. Strike. To see and not be seen. A bleak mountainside with little more than a few boulders and trees as thin and withered as an old man’s arm made her shoulders gather.

She took a sharp, but quiet, breath through her nose when a sound came from the backseat.

“Rena?”

“Mhm?” She locked on Iris’ sleep-heavy eyes. She blinked a few times before making her point.

“Thank you.”

Rena puffed a breath out of her nose and shook her head. “Not yet.”

The girl let out a quiet hum before nodding off again.

As alone as she was ever going to be in that car, Rena locked her elbow to hold the wheel and rest the other on the windowsill, hand at her temple. She glanced at her rucksack a dozen times, and each was met by a simple statement.

_Not yet._

So there’d be an ‘again’. Every frayed edge she’d torn at was to be smoothed and woven. Again. Every box she’d packed, and herself with it, was to be opened. Again. Every last shred of that life was to be clung to. Again. Every step taken away was to be retraced. Again.

She’d see him. Again. She was nothing if not stubborn.

But not yet.

As she stayed on the mountain roads, ripped by potholes and the cracks of tectonism, the trees welcomed her. They ushered her in and cloaked her from the sky and what lurked there, circling like eagles as they patrolled their spoils. They’d gotten more than what was promised. Taken more than was to be given. Such was the way of things, of life and survival. Hunts were always all or nothing. Prey was killed or harmed and let go. Lucis couldn’t have run any longer if they’d tried.

Time was irrelevant. There was no point in glancing at anything other than the fuel dial and the road. Somehow, they felt like the last of their hours, more so than they had that morning. There was a finality to each second, as though it weighed more and sincerely couldn’t be brought back. Each moment felt as though it cost more, as though it were going to bleed out just before they did.

On a glance at the rear-view mirror, she was met with the changing sky between the trees. As she drove on, the sun rose. It threw long shadows and dapples pools so bright it looked as though they’d splash. The smoke had cleared over the city and allowed dawn to rise on a new Lucis, if it could be called that anymore. It began to filter through the trees in gold and bronze, defining them as it rose cool and aurous.

The hills began to bare. The tall plume of steam came from ahead to balance the one of smoke behind. The trees had given way, from Leiden skeletons, the Duscaean cover and finally those stationed and solemn in Cleigne. In that dawn, the redwoods were creased and sharp, like layers of rust as they surrounded the trunks up to softer branches, already lush with their summer green.

Rena glanced at her passengers. Jared had stirred and was watching the trees go by as Talcott stayed slumped against his side, mouth open as he slept. Iris had stayed up half the night and was pale with fatigue, even as she slept. It felt a shame to disturb them, but it had to be done.

Rena cleared her throat and locked on the eyes so black they sparkled like spilled ink. Jared nodded and gently shook Talcott’s shoulders. The boy roused with a questioning hum and slow blinks. Once suitably conscious, his face brightened for a moment. Then he saw the smashed windows of the jeep, the dark shape of the dog watching the windscreen as the other lurked in the footwell and stared at him while the stranger kept the wheel. He remembered it. The city.

Rena heard the whisperings given to Talcott and watched in the mirror as he turned on the spot and began to pat and push at Iris’ shoulder. She woke with a reluctant groan before a yawn threatened to tear her apart. Dark lashes parted as she stretched and looked about the car. With all her passengers awake, Rena spoke quietly as to avoid grating on the tender nerves of fresh consciousness.

“Nearly there.”

As another bare hill rolled by and they were lost from the trees entirely, the narrow slip of Lestallum showed itself between the mounds of sandy rock. It was mainly the back of the power plant, the chain link fence and broad pipes cresting out of the concrete only to dive back in again. Rena glanced at the fuel dial, then at her smashed windows, missing wing mirror and the ruined paintwork of the bonnet. Six knew what the rest of the car looked like.

She found a patch of trees on the west side of the town and weaved the jeep between them. When Rena leant across to other side of the car, opened the door and then grabbed her bag, they all watched with wide eyes and mild frowns. Rena stepped out and stretched, her back and shoulders cracking back into place from the far too many hours in the car as she surveyed the damage.

The once svelte and smooth black of the jeep had been scraped back to bare metal and more. The roof was dented from her first run-in with the depot door, while the sides were scraped by the long streaks of bullets and the bonnet scratched by chain link. Already an imposing enough vehicle, with its size and modernity, there would be no way she could take it into Lestallum without raising eyebrows and worse, suspicion.

Not everyone in the outer regions was in favour of the treaty, after all. A Crownsguard vehicle would be tailed and forced from the road. There was only so much more of a beating that car could take.

“Ah, fuck…” Stiff and sore, she opened Iris’ door and whistled the dogs to her side. “C’mon, out.”

“But we’re-.”

“I’m not driving this thing into Lestallum. We’ll walk. It’s only a mile or so,” she said, glancing at Jared as he stepped from the jeep, puffed out his cheeks and screwed his eyes up.

Rena waited for them to get out, then pulled a discreet strap under the centre of the back seat. After it clicked, she pushed the cushioning up and out of the way. A black box, no larger than a catalogue, sat in the centre, bearing its red cross with quiet pride. She pulled it out and rummaged through it until she found what she wanted. The small box was still heavy. Rena pulled on some gloves, then fished out one of the tiny vials and a fresh needle.

“Jared. What painkillers do you take?”

“Codeine,” Talcott interjected from her side. She glanced down at the boy. He watched with fascination as she drew a half dose into the syringe and drew the needle out carefully.

“What’s the dose?”

“Thirty milli- m- millie-.”

“Alright, don’t hurt yourself. Thirty milligrams, right?” she asked, one eyebrow quirked at the young boy. When dark eyes met a hazel hue, he shrank back for a moment under the stranger’s focus.

“Y-yes ma’am.”

“Please don’t call me ma’am. Thirty milligrams… How often?” she pressed Talcott directly, as she continued to rummage through the kit for a small white bottle, a few cotton balls and a tiny roll of bandage tape that she looped her pinkie finger through. She held all her equipment in one hand, and the needle in the other. It was a dexterity he hadn’t expected from someone so raggedly brutal.

“Two tablets every day. One in the morning and one at bedtime.”

While still facing Talcott, Rena flicked her eyes to Jared. Wearing a quietly proud smile under his moustache, he nodded at her. She shifted her focus back to the boy at her side, still wide-eyed at her busy hands. He followed one of them as they reached back to the box and pulled out a small pair of clean blue gloves. She held them out to Talcott.

“Can you give me a hand?”

His small mouth hung open at the gloves, then up her.

“I uh… Yeah… I guess.”

“You don’t have to,” she reassured, hard expression somehow careful. Talcott pressed his lips together and straightened up with a big breath pulled into little lungs.

“N-no, I can- I wanna… Help, I mean. I wanna help,” he said with gumption.

Rena reached into the car, closed the box and pulled the seats back down over the compartment. She began to walk around the car, gesturing for him to follow. He was as close at her heels as the dogs. Once they reached the other side, where Jared leant, propped up between car and walking stick, she opened the door.

“Up there,” she pointed to the seat. Talcott hopped in and sat, legs hanging over the side. Rena passed him the cotton swabs, small bottle of alcohol and the tape before turning to Jared.

“Where to, miss?”

Rena cracked half a smile. “Shoulder, please.”

Jared nodded and began to unbutton his waistcoat with knotted hands. He left it hanging on one shoulder, moved the suspender off, then opened his shirt enough. Ever traditional, we wore a vest under his shirt, and held the elbow of the bared arm.

“Open that bottle for me please,” she asked, gently plucking a cotton swab from his hand.

Talcott unscrewed the cap, took a sniff, then scrunched his face together. Rena snorted a laugh. She plugged the bottle of alcohol with a swab and upturned it quickly. She passed him the bottle and cleaned a circle on Jared’s shoulder. Rena stretched the skin and apologised quickly. Jared’s brows gathered with a hissed breath, but he quickly tamed it back down to his usual jolly composure, though it was somewhat sombre this morning. Rena withdrew the needle, cleaned the tiny wound, then pressed and taped a cotton swab to it.

As Jared redressed, she stripped off her gloves and accepted Talcott’s before opening the trunk of the car. Broken glass twinkled and sang as she lifted yet another discreet strap. Talcott peeked in. They were large. Black metal. There were five of them, the three longer held in their foam casings on the left as the two on the right were shorter. He knew the sound they could make now. Better than ever. They sounded just like the movies and games, but he’d always thought the screams came before the shot, not after.

“Hey.”

Talcott took a hitched breath and stepped back from the trunk as she closed the ammunition chest and left the guns in the trunk.

“You alright?”

Rena was watching him, one eyebrow raised as she watched him and tied the returned flannel around her waist. With the dogs at her sides, and beginning to understand what she was capable of, he took another step back. He flinched, small fists gathered to his chest, when the darker of the dogs stepped forwards, head bobbing low as she sniffed at him. Wide hazel eyes looked up at Rena, then focused on the dog, now a few inches away from him.

When a cold, wet nose pressed to his elbow, Talcott braced for teeth.

He was met by a warm tongue that carefully licked at a graze he didn’t remember getting. At a small nod from Rena, he let his hand fall to the dog again and bury in the thick sable fur. After a few moments the close presence of the dog as she checked him over with sniffs and nudges let his shoulder relax.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Rena began to walk. She kept her speed to one that Jared could manage, though it was Talcott that brought up the rear, small fingers still lost in the fur between Seyna’s shoulders. Halfway there, as the town approached, a bright voice that had lost its melody spoke up.

“What are we gonna do once we get there? Like… What’s the plan?”

Rena glanced at Iris and took a breath before answering.

“Find you somewhere to stay and set you up right for the next few days. However long you need, really.”

“Oh… Wait, you’re _not_ staying with us?”

The head of curls shook. “Probably not.”

“Probably?!” she said shrilly, drawing level with Rena and Ochre at her side. “What-? You can’t-! You can’t _leave_ us!”

Green eyes, colour shown in its depth by the rising sun, locked on an amber shade held under gathered brows. She spoke with certainty and simplicity.

“ _Probably._ Even if I do, you’ll be alright.”

Iris had no argument for something said so surely. She let herself fall level with Jared and walked alongside the old man as the town approached.

Heat already poured from every steaming vent and began to pool on the basking cobbles. While the woods had given way to the bare hills just outside Lestallum, palm trees stood guard in a line at the mouth of the town, their fronds waving gently in the rising warmth of the day. Each lightly rusted sign or colourful stand away from the main market guided them further as Rena took narrow streets towards an unknown location.

Rena’s eyes were busy. She took sweeps constantly, watching for anything faceless or metal, or anyone that stared too long, or not long enough. The dogs gathered a little attention, hopefully enough to distract from their faces.

Once into a more internal square of the town, the corner pillar, sign and eggshell blue walls of the Leville presented themselves. She signalled the dogs to lie down in some shade at the bottom of the steps and led the others into the cool conditioned air of the lobby.

Their limbs were heavy. Eyes that were usually fresh wore dark shades beneath them. Fatigue, hunger and no small amount of stress had exhausted them. She was glad she hadn’t chosen to hide them in the woods.

Rena stood at the desk and waited for the receptionist to put his newspaper down. When he lowered it, it was with a shaking head and grave brown eyes.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly, more to make a noise and get his attention than start an argument. The paper rustled as he shoved it to the side, almost glad to be distracted from it.

“Yes? I mean, uh, welcome to the Leville. What can I do for you today?”

“Have you got a room for three? Two beds, if you can,” she asked, eyebrows raised.

The receptionist quickly swept a hand through his short brown hair, thin brows gathering over his glasses as he flicked through the book in front of him.

“Uhh… Yup. Can do. How long d’ya need it for?”

Rena widened her eyes slightly as she inhaled. Dark brows pinched together lightly as she gave her answer.

“Five nights, please.”

“Of course,” he trailed, scribbling into the set boxes of the booking record. “And can I take a name for that, please?”

_Careful._

“Topi. J.”

Rena wondered where Joren was now. If he’d made it out. Even trivial things, like the mess of the greenhouse or whether the explosions had blown out the shop windows. Seeing someone every two weeks for months on end tended to encourage small talk about life’s small inconveniences. The tax bill. The play at the kid’s school. How the cat had eaten lint again. Her flowers had always arrived with his anecdotes, and he’d never failed to make her smile.

“Alrighty, that’ll be fifteen-hundred. Sign here, please.”

The book was pushed onto the desk in front of her and a fountain pen presented. She took it and dared an explosion to shake Lestallum as she pressed pen to paper and forged a scribbled signature that simply wasn’t hers. Rena swung her rucksack to the front and pinned it between the desk and her knee. She pulled out her purse, and the funding she’d brought to get her away from Lucis, to let her leave.

Circumstances had changed.

Rena paid for the room, took the key when it was handed to her, offered her thanks and led them into the hotel. Once she unlocked the door, the blue walls met them. Smooth, where they weren’t peeling, and two double beds half basked in sunlight from the horizontally slatted blinds. She shouldered her rucksack and didn’t sit down.

A hand on her other shoulder made her flinch lightly. She looked aside to meet the sparkling black eyes of Jared. No matter how tired he was or how much his years plagued him, there was a bright wisdom behind those eyes. Knowledge. Pools of it that glinted in the light. He patted her shoulder gently.

“I can’t thank you enough. It’s unfortunate that I need to at all, that all of this… But… _Thank you.”_

Dark eyes under sincerely gathered brows fixed on him out of respect. She shook her head a little.

“It’s alright.”

He gave her shoulder a light squeeze before shuffling to the bathroom and closing the door. Talcott had busied himself with the window, and what he could see outside. She’d been right. It was just like the encyclopaedias he’d pored over. The meteor shone in broad daylight, even as the power plant behind them tapped into its power.

Satisfied with their location, Rena took a deep breath of the musty hotel air. She needed fresh air. Something that wasn’t laced with smoke or rubble dust, nor by mildew or starched linens. She turned on her heels and met Iris, shoulders pressed to the wall as she looked at the floor, then flicked up to her.

“C’mere,” Rena said, slipping out of the door. Iris followed.

Once in the musty hallway of the hotel, and sure it was empty, she still kept her voice hushed. Green eyes locked on amber and spoke quietly.

“Give it two or three days, then call Gladio. If they’re still in Lucis, they’ll come get you. Till then, keep your phone off, and don’t answer the door to anyone. This,” she reeled off and handed over her purse. “Should be enough to keep you guys fed. Don’t tell anyone who you are, it’s more trouble than it’s fuckin’ worth. Anyone asks, Jared’s your grandfather and Talcott’s your brother. Anything goes wrong, or looks like it might, use your mobile, _not the landline._ Call the Marshal, me, Gladio, in that order if you can’t get one of us. Once you do, break your phone. Flush it down the toilet, I don’t care. Get rid of it. Alright?”

Iris’ eyes were wide and her mouth open as she clung to every word. Rena waited for it all to settle in her mind; muddy waters are best left to still, and Iris had been shaken enough in the last day.

A day.

That’s all it had taken. One day. Not even; it was yet to match the time of yesterday’s first blast. One day and a city had fallen, families had become as obliterated as the buildings they’d called home, and others were scattered into regions they’d rarely ventured out into. The world had changed, and more so than it did with seasons. There was something irreversible about it. Finality rested heavy on shoulders of all ages.

They were refugees now, except for Rena. She was what she’d always been.

“O-okay.”

“Alright. I’m gonna go but _be careful_ , _”_ she reinforced, locking eyes with Iris. After a quick nod from the girl who’d begun to grow up too fast, she turned and began to walk away.

Rena made it halfway down the corridor before something caught her wrist and made her flinch. She turned over her shoulder to Iris as she gathered her thoughts.

“Wait! I- I think you should call him. Today. He’ll wanna know everything’s okay and you said I can’t today, so maybe you can? He gets so worried and it stresses him out and he gets-,” she trailed, rapidly losing her grip on the tracks as small fists gathered at her cheeks and she finished with a trademark gesture Rena had only ever seen from her brother; the arms spread like wings, frustrated that they couldn’t fly, as eyes welled with tears.

“Hey, _hey,_ ” Rena caught her gaze and held her attention with soft intensity. “He’ll be fine. He’s your brother, you should call him. But _wait._ Give it a few days.”

“I know you’re not just a friend.”

Rena went concerningly still, they type that only came before a strike. The softness left her gaze as she walled up and focused on Iris. The younger Amicitia took deep, stilling breaths to calm herself back down and explain her blurted admission.

“I… I know you’re not just his friend. He didn’t tell me, he _wouldn’t,_ not if you didn’t want to. I just figured that, well, all that time you guys spent training and he kept hiding his phone and it wasn’t like him and I was so worried but then it was you and we met at Noct’s and I really don’t think he coulda found someone better for him, y’know?”

Rena’s mouth opened to speak carefully, but Iris beat her to it.

“He really likes you. I haven’t seen him this happy in years but, I just- I think he’d wanna hear you. Know you’re okay.”

She weaved her head to the side and opened her mouth to speak again.

“Please, Rena. Just let him know you’re okay. _Please._ ”

“Fine.”

A brief smile flashed on Iris’ face, but she was too weakened to hold it for long. She held an earnest frown as Rena continued to speak.

“I’ll call him today, update. In a few days, if you don’t get a call from him, call _Ignis_. Gladio might’ve lost his phone or broken it to beat the tracking.”

“I don’t have Iggy’s number.”

“Noct?”

“Yup.”

“Right, Noct then. Give it a few days, Iris, I mean it. Wait for things to slow down a little, give things time.”

“Okay,” she nodded. She backed away, moving back to the room, before she stopped again and dropped her shoulders, head tilted to the side as she frowned. “You’re not _really_ goin’ back, are you?”

“Don’t have a choice. Technically still in the Guard,” Rena shrugged. “Signed an oath and all that shit.”

“Well, uh, good luck, ‘kay?” she said, fingers knotted with her own hands.

“You too, but it’s not about luck,” she reminded, turning on her heels and walking away.

She heard Iris’ lighter boots fading away, the door open and then close. She slipped out of the lobby and whistled the dogs from their spot in the shade. They followed, close at her heels as she made her way to the edge of town and further, keeping her eyes down between sweeps. Once back at the jeep, they hopped into the back as she suited up.

The jeans and grey tank she’d worn yesterday, dusty with rubble and smoke, were matched with the contents at the bottom of her rucksack; both thigh and waist brown leather belts, scratched and restocked with her supplies. The knife at her leg only acted to reinforce it, if only in her subconscious. The flannel was tied back about her waist and a navy rag tucked into her back pocket. Rena held the spares she’d brought, deep red for Seyna and sky blue for Ochre, in her hand and opened each of the back doors in turn. The dogs’ collars and tags were swapped for tied bandanas that signified nothing more than care; they weren’t strays and shots fired at them would be returned. She moved the rifle she’d stolen and a handgun from the boot, both loaded and ready, into the passenger seat and settled behind the wheel.

Rena swept south through Cleigne on roads she knew well but hadn’t expected to see so soon. As the forest thickened around her, she was able to breathe again. The sun warmed the sap from the trees and gave the air that acrid danger of burning it had always carried; the scent of pine was both perfume and ether, temptation and threat. Each moment spent in the light pushed the wheat from the ground, brought grape and grain closer to harvest for the end of the summer. Somehow that felt further away than it ever had.

She found a small clearing by a stream and pulled the jeep in there. She knew her escape route from there. It would be easy, provided she was allowed to travel it alone. Rena pulled her phone from her rucksack and sat with it in her lap for a moment, before she stepped out of the car and opened the phone, fixed her settings and avoided the homescreen as much as she could as she crouched by the stream, one hand in the water and boots silent on thick moss.

_Duty first._

She found his number and called it. After the pulsing, dull sound of the call being put through, a voice answered at the other end.

_“Report.”_

“Lauritas, R.”

_“Get those flowers delivered?”_

“Yes, sir,” she said simply, pinching dew from the moss between her fingers. “Anything else you want me to get?”

_“Standard pick up. Got some dog food sitting around.”_

She smirked at the code name. “Cat didn’t get the cream?”

 _“He did not,”_ the marshal ground out. Rena clenched her jaw. She’d spoken too quickly and with too light a tone. As much as it would aid the call, should it be intercepted, it had put a bitterness in Leonis’ words.

“Where’s the cat these days, anyway?” she asked, throwing just enough casualness into her tone to make it passable and not caricature. “I take it he’s alright, sir?”

_“He’s fine. He’s on easy street.”_

Rena straightened up at the location. Hammerhead and surrounds. As she squeezed more water from the moss with her boot, she made a sweeping glance around the clearing. It was surrounded by thick larch trees, enough to hide her and the jeep. The stream at her feet was clear and fast, running over rocks in every sandy shade from gold to tawny to an off-white, with clusters of deep green plants growing between them and pulled by the water like hair as a person swam. The light that filtered down from above and between the trees was bright and golden, enough to light small insects and larger specks of pollen as they fell as summer’s mimicry of snow. Better yet than this tiny haven, was how clear the woods were. Nothing shifted between the trees.

“I’ll go get him.”

_“He’ll be waiting. And Lauritas?”_

“Sir?”

_“Follow protocol. You know what to do.”_

“Yes, sir.”

_“Over.”_

“Over.”

Rena took the phone from her ear. Without a conversation, it was so quiet. Even with the gurgle of the stream, things were so still. If she hadn’t been deleting the numbers from her phone and wiping its memory, she would’ve noticed that. Instead, the pressing weight in her gut of instinct arching its back and leaning against her spine was pinned down to nerves. What would he know? What should she tell him? _How_ should she say it? Were they still in Lucis?

She tapped in Gladio’s number and hovered over the call button.

_You sure about this?_

_Yes._

_You worked hard to walk away. You can still walk away._

_I don’t want to._

_You can._

_Fuck you. I can’t._

She turned the phone in her hand, thumb poised over the button and began to lift it to her ear.

It was shot clean out of her hand. The silenced gun had come from her left. She stayed perfectly still and let only her eyes move.

The phone lay crackling on the moss to her side, fizzing as it died. She flicked her eyes left. Then forward. Then right.

They were everywhere. Pairs of glowing red eyes that marched closer with heavy steps and materials foreign to these woods, and far harder than they’d ever known. The instinct in her gut lay down and kept its head low as she stayed motionless and let them close in. She’d have to make a decision. All that she did make was low, hoarse growl of a curse.

“Ah, fuck…”


	21. Withdrawal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After helping refugees escape a ruined Insomnia and ensuring Noctis found the first royal tomb, Cor finds himself lacking direction. Alone at last, his mind begins to fray.

Cor didn’t know how long he’d paced in the narrow crevice. The smooth walls that only led to a dead end towered twenty feet above him, and closed until all that joined him in that cage was a narrow curtain of light that taunted him with the passing of time. What had begun as a shady spot, cool and sheltered from the rising head of a Leiden day, had crashed over that small space like a wave until now; the sun was a single, burning red eye that peeked into his hiding place.

There was no hiding for Cor anymore, despite it being the only thing he could bear to do.

Each step had been the swinging of the pendulum until the time marked by its motion blurred and stretched and left him with nothing but the wretched thoughts of a mind that couldn’t take much more.

Venturing back into the city had been one of his many mistakes, but it needed to be done. Old friends that were more like family had worked hard to keep him from it, to usher him away. He’d left their decision to modify the Guard unquestioned; it was about time the change had come about, especially when they were so close to peace. The _stability_ of said peace was negligible; as long as it was there. Stationing Cor himself on the outskirts of the city on a day as auspicious and, frankly, dangerous as that, had been something he’d questioned. They’d simply assured him that it would be fine. The Glaive were guarding the centre whilst the Guard held the walls. The two of them had convinced him.

What they had done was exactly what they had always done; grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and thrown him outside like a dog, only for Cor to later realise he was being saved from a house fire. They’d snatched him from the huge, patient jaws of ambush once again. Cor had always run headfirst into danger; if it needed dealt with, it was going to be dealt with, and if no-one else took action, it would be done by his hand.

There was a shred of recklessness that had never left him. It was what kept him walking forwards and never looking back. As he’d aged, the fire of that intensity had been tempered and calmed into smooth steel, something useful, biddable and reliable. A quiet strength of capability.

Still, he’d gone back.

It was as if every step he’d taken back to the city had been taken with his eyes closed, as though he’d refuse to see anything, to refuse what he knew was waiting for him.

They were likely dead.

The thought had sounded so calm, so certain and absolute that it settled any quarrel taken up with it. Each footprint he’d made in the rubble dust of the city’s carcass had led him closer and made him realise precisely what had happened while he’d been ferrying citizens from the streets they called home.

It was all laid to waste.

That hadn’t stopped the air being ripped from his lungs when he stepped into the ruined throne room. When an old friend, steady and calm, had been pinned by his own dedication in the form of that sword. He’d only ever moved to protect, occasionally landing them into a political stalemate. Whatever would protect the man his soul was bound to, and his people, would be best.

Clarus’ humanity had always been striking. A hearty laugh, an endlessly dry sense of humour and the sheer love he bore for his children were admirable for a man made to stand alongside another while he faced a life beyond unfair. An apology was permanently written in clear blue eyes; a simple, short letter to his son that was ceaselessly sorry for giving him life only to put him in a cage, and another to his daughter, for leaving her outside those bars, at the mercy of the world.

He’d always been a father. Long before he’d even met his wife and had his children, he was the clear patriarch amongst them. Quick bats to their ears and grumbled complaints as he fixed something _again_ had been standard with him. There was always something though, a muted retort or momentary eye roll, that reminded them of his care. Dedication. He’d have done anything for them.

He’d have done anything for _him._ Taking his own sword through his spine, rendered useless by the very thing that defined his purpose, had been a cruel fate.

Cor’s jaw clenched at the thought of him, alive but immobile, as he heard Regis fight for his life, and those closest to him, alone.

If that had stolen the air from his lungs, the scene he’d stumbled upon, deeper within the walls meant to kept them safe, had been enough to bring Cor to his knees.

Frail, ruined and still, he’d damned the fact Regis had looked as peace, as though this was what he wanted. Gods knew he’d prayed for it when the pain wracked him and left him bedbound. Cor hadn’t been able to step into the room. He’d simply seen it, and fallen to his knees. The thin line etched into the marble floor, into history, had been found by lost fingertips, searching the stone as though it could offer the guidance once given freely in these halls. He’d never felt sick at the scent of blood before. This had sickened his very being.

He could’ve cursed him. Grace had been Regis’ gift. The patience to walk towards a fate sealed and be kind in his every stride. He’d spent his entire life being robbed; his father, his freedom, his wife, his son.

The cruel hand of fate had stolen Noctis from him more than once. First when his role in the world had doomed him as a lamb to slaughter. Again when a daemon had crawled from the darkness and all but ripped him from life. The third occasion had been the cruellest. It had lasted longest, consumed the past few years and stolen Noctis everyone and himself. They were afforded glimpses as he became more withdrawn, would sleep for days on end because he simply couldn’t bear to be awake anymore, or feared what his mind would show if he braved consciousness.

The black dog had kept at Cor’s heels for decades; bearing its teeth whenever he failed and gods knew he had failed.

He’d wandered, lost and cracked, through a city as ruined as himself.

What he’d found had broken him. It was the final support taken away, and Cor was sorely lacking a keystone.

Some meddling of metal and flesh, of monster and man. He’d been troubled, Cor knew that better than anyone and damned himself for being blind to it. The origins of that blindness were yet to be explained; whether it was the simple turning away because admitting such monstrosities belonged to a man he’d called brother felt wrong, or if it was something done to them, sand cast up and thrown into their eyes, or a blindfold tied so neatly, they’d barely noticed it being put on.

Cor could no longer decide if the monster was armour, or the man was a cloak.

And _he…_ Well, Cor was still alive. As always. He’d made it out- barely- and so here he was, pacing a tiny crevice in the side of a Leiden ridge, drawing back and forth like a shuttle in a loom, trying to make sense of it all and lay the chaotic threads of his mind into an ordered tapestry; into history.

But his hands were shaking. He kept getting tangled, caught and cut by those threads.

Once again, they’d thrown him out of the way only to save him. One of their last acts had been to try and keep him safe, to push him out of the way of a danger he was too stubborn to back down from. It put the bitter taste of bile in the back of his mouth.

Cor _knew_ he ought to be grateful; that one of their final acts had been towards him, that he’d been in their thoughts. Whatever gratitude he did hold towards them was hollow, and marked by the undertone of those left behind. He was the child that had been plucked from a car before his parents, and taken to safety only for it to explode and take them from him. He was more alone than he’d ever been, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bear to thank them for it.

Each time his hand dipped into the armiger, it felt wrong. Quiet. Lonely. Dead. The shifting smoke of those waters were motionless. Weapons were stabbed into the smooth stones underneath and stood as markers, reminders of an existence, of lives and souls. They would never be retrieved again, and were simply left to stand in the stead of family. Cor was alone, pinned to that graveyard by swords as morbidly still as the ribs of whales on the ocean floor. It was crushing, abyssal and deafeningly silent.

It was not the first armiger to have silenced in his service.

Immortal was a brand. The longer he spent trying, openly defying gods and men to protect those he’d chosen, the longer that iron spent in the forge. Bound by unbreakable loyalty, Cor held fast to both of them and left his hands busy, arms outstretched and self unguarded. Vulnerable. That loyalty wrapped chains around his wrists, heavy and unyielding, enough to pull him taut and keep him still.

Then the branding came. At first, the pain had been enough for his mind to forego it. It was searing, the binding of flesh to iron as the old scar was freshened. It was pushed into his back, across his shoulders and pressed there while the flesh rendered and smoked. When it was finally torn away, it left him bleeding, bones charred and skin weeping. It was a pain that made him scream so loudly, he couldn’t hear it.

Any mention of immortality was a knife point pressed against that wound. Before, it would’ve found the scar impenetrable, but the newer branding had left him raw and burning again. Hateful.

Clarus and Regis may have been the chains he’d tied around his own wrists, but Drautos had been the hands holding the brand. Decades together had made him a brother. Cor was one of the few that remembered how wretched he’d been when they’d found him. Close in age, mentality and left with little choice but the army to lead them on from boyhood, youth and years had tied them close. They’d grown apart, as everyone did; that much was as natural as the broadening reach tree branches. The flexible adaptability of one defied the steadfast stubborness of the other, the first of the separation. Still, they knew each other because of knowing where they’d begun.

Cor now doubted just how much he’d known him, and in that waver from what he knew he had discovered the fresh hell that made him question every step, every breath and every beat of his heart that defied the dying soul.

Uncertainty was a foe, and Cor Leonis was sorely outmatched.

Endless repetition was meant to serve as meditation. All it did was dement him as he paced, back and forth, back and forth, endlessly stuck even as he kept moving. It was nothing but the pacing of an animal in a trap as it mapped the limits. He was too nervous to pull further and force the snare to tighten. He drew burning lungfuls of the dusty air, red and rusted by the sunset over the region.

No amount of rain, not even that which had fallen during the Fulgarians trial, had managed to flood Leide. It was a beast of endless thirst, taking on every drop until the ground cracked and begged hoarsely for more. The burning heat of the high summer only made the torture of the brand last longer; that was the opening that allowed fiery days and heavy nights to roast him alive.

The rain had stopped and the covenant had been made, as it should have been.

Cor had held together long enough, still numb to the pain that solitude revealed, when he’d met with them. Four boys, each vastly unprepared in their own way, had little option but to become men.

At least they were together. That had afforded Cor a taste of that rare element, of certainty, before he’d left them to carry on in good faith. They had each other, and would work together through the sense of brotherhood intrinsic to them. Each had impressed, each was trained, and they were ready purely because the strengths of one guarded the weaknesses of the next. He envied them for it.

Cor kept to his pacing, and hoped, _prayed,_ it would unravel his mind enough for him to string it back together and make something of it. Something useful. Something more than a tangle of bloodied string so soaked it fell apart with too much tension.

Faced by the dead end once again, he turned on his heels in a movement so practiced, it felt wrong on the few occasions he’d used the other foot, and strode towards the opening once more.

No more than halfway, he stopped dead.

Where a fiery eye had watched his descent, it had been blinded. The edges of those flames glowed and licked around a silhouette. Tall. Dark. Steel glinted at the side in a bright silver that reminded him far too much of a moon he wasn’t sure he was going to see, not with the way they were standing. Twenty feet further away, a smaller shape, lower to the ground, swept with the quiet menace of a beast in waiting.

One command, one twitch in his direction, and Cor would have a fight on his hands. He didn’t like his odds, especially being backed into a corner.

But when had that ever stopped him before?

The key was to hide in plain sight. Show them the self, but not fear, not apprehension or second guesses. It was to make them think they had you, only to prove them wrong.

He forced himself not to flinch and summon his weapon when a shape was slung around to the front of the silhouette and hidden in that shadow. It had been too blunt to be a weapon, but he’d seen the glint of sun on steel, of the fire of a dying day on the blade of an axehead.

Ears still ringing, he didn’t hear the quiet shifting of leather, nor the breathed sigh. The first sound to break his drowning was water. The sloshing of a mostly full bottle of water as it was held out to him and shaken to gather his attention.

“Sir?”

The voice was familiar. Not one he could immediately put a face to, he’d never heard it that often. It was almost deja vu, the unsettled sensation of time travel without ever leaving the current plane; the blurring of present self with past as that ghost filled him.

Steel blue eyes squinted and found the hints. Errant curls strayed from a bun. The faint silvery line of a scar channelled sunlight. He knew the knife at her thigh as well.

Throat too dry to speak, and mind too messy to form words, he simply stared at her. Rena shook the bottle again as she offered it. The sound pulled his attention down. What little fiery light hit the water set soft splashes against stone walls smoothed by time itself. The quiet flames were harmless, but still spooked him with their abstracts.

A quick, quiet whistle gathered his attention again.

The attempt to clear his throat both sounded and felt like gravel. It did nothing but threaten him with an arid coughing fit. It was too violent a sound for someone so thoroughly exhausted. He took the single step forwards and accepted the bottle. It was the first weight to have met empty hands in a few days.

The weathered hand, calloused and strong, but shaking, had reached out and taken the bottle as if it would make no difference, but he still feared it being taken away. Bathed in nothing but the light of a day’s death, the marshal was a wretched sight. Days in the sun, without shade or shelter, had deepened his tan under a film of Leiden dust only revealed in the momentarily loosened lines of his frown. That expression was harder, and somehow more fragile for it. Brittle.

Dressed in Lucian black, he was a drop of ink on stone that refused to bear it. The red rock needed carved, not stained, to make a difference. He wasn’t seeping in and becoming lost; he was just lingering. Lost and alone. Time had neglected him. Short, thick hair was left in overgrown tufts, while the once tidy stubble had blurred to a dark shadow across his jaw. He was made of three colours; black, ruddy tan, and piercing blue that was more water than steel.

Cor, for once, looked exactly as he was.

Exhausted. Alone. Neglected. Surviving; barely.

As much as the tan tied him to the red dirt and the blue of his eyes held the clouds, the black was jarring. Obvious. Revealing.

He’d guzzled half the bottle by the time she swung her rucksack to her front again and pulled out a bundle of rough fabrics.

“Slow down. It’s not gonna help if you throw it back up,” she reminded.

A thought struck Cor, and it was one that filled and empty stomach with razor wire, coils whipping like a trapped snake. The more he thought about it, the stranger that water tasted. It wasn’t that he’d simply forgotten the taste; it wasn’t _just_ water. He stared at the bottle, then at her.

Rena knew better than to ask a man in the desert to hand back a water bottle, so simply held out the roll of clothes in their various shades and fabrics, held together by a worn leather belt. “Here, put these on.”

It wasn’t that simple.

There was no other colour than Lucian black. His world had been black and white, existent and non. It was a world of clear-cut contrast, the white lines marking a road in the darkness, with change revealed as he came upon it. There were walls, boundaries, limitations and certainty.

The world was changing. Everything had flooded, become distorted by that water and blurred into endless greys. It lacked the component that was as sharp and steady, reliable and untarnished, as steel. The world was full of uncertainty, and possibilities shoaled around him like fish, shifting, deceptive and vastly outnumbering.

He was a final bastion of what were precariously close to becoming the days-gone-by. Of the six hundred that had been on duty that day, less than eighty had reported back to him. Fifty were uninjured. Twenty were willing to continue their service and had scattered themselves throughout Lucis to be his eyes and ears, and to keep the peace.

One stood in front of him. Stubborn and steadfast, she was as hard as she’d been every time he’d thrown her into a training ring, or back into the outlands. Something was different. It was as though she’d never been to the city, and had merely happened upon him here and taken pity. There wasn’t a shred of black on her.

But there was grey.

And red.

And metal.

“Sir.”

He flicked his gaze back up to her. Cor knew those eyes, but couldn’t read them.

“Put them on.”

“No.”

The refusal left him instantly. It was the flinch of a wounded animal, as though the fabric of his uniform had bonded to the brand and become more than armour; it was skin.

Others had worn skin as disguises. Hidden behind impassive expression and cryptic words. Cor damned him, and then himself. She would hate him even more if she knew.

“Sir-.”

_“No.”_

Cor had encountered her skill. He’d been witness to perseverance, to patience and to her sheer abandon under threat of injury, or even death.

He was yet to meet her stubbornness.

“Put them on.”

Cor clenched his jaw.

Her stillness was unnerving. Deep green locked on him while dark features in shadow made an already hard expression fierce. Each knew something the other didn’t, and they’d sooner draw blood than truth.

“All due respect sir, where we’re going, you might not want to walk around in the black,” she said, still holding out the bundle. “Just put them on.”

“I can’t,” he shot back, as if it were the most straightforward thing in the world. Death was all around him; it was only fitting for him to wear black. Black was all he had left. Of them, of life, of himself.

A sigh seemed forged and heated in her throat, but it didn’t reach the surface.

“Oh for- just put them on? Please?”

“No,” he reinforced, shaking his head as the frown deepened again. Her own brows gathered and met him with a steel edge he knew well.

“It’s just a fucking change of clothes. _Put them on.”_

Had it really all been a change of clothes? Had it been that simple for him? Simply shed the armour, or the leather, whichever was required, and spill blood until it flowed and showed him the way.

There had been so much blood. Whilst Regis had lain in a pool as still as the armiger, Clarus’ was streaked down the wall in a final effort to join with the man he’d sworn to, to be at his side one last time.

_And where were you?_

Cor strangled the thought.

Stubborn and steady, the small bundle of clothes was still outstretched to him. When he glanced up again, Cor was reminded of his situation; backed into a tiny crevasse and facing a pupil that had never failed to impress him, one that had already made a decision, while the sun was sinking fast.

The free hand reached and took the clothes, weathered from pale, and took a step back towards the dead end. He’d only just shouldered out of his jacket when a quiet _thud_ came from behind him. He turned over his shoulder to see her hand retreat from the pair of worn leather boots she’d found before Rena stepped away from the opening in the rock.

He stared at the open space, at freedom, for a few moments. If he got a headstart, he’d make it.

The looming shadow of a patrolling dog made him think again.

When he stepped from the small, open cell he’d confined himself to for days, Cor was bearing a bundle of black, of the past, that felt so distinguished, so _heavy_ in his hands. He may as well have been a pallbearer. It was more of a funeral than either of them, and gods knew they deserved more, had been given. He emerged sheepish and dulled in baggy jeans and a beige henley that was far too big for him, so much so that even with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, they kept slipping down. A part of him was lost when he shed the black.

The air was fresher outside that stab wound in the ridge. Still burning and dry, but with a taste of the coming night and the cold snap it would bring. There was a light breeze, and even that seemed to dust him off a little. It was a silken hand when all he’d known was the hard stare of harder walls and the motionless fire of conserved heat.

He opened his eyes from that tiny, blissful mercy and saw a wider horizon. Too wide. It made his head pound with the sheer lack of limit. There was nothing holding the sky up, and the heavy blue that had been dyed blood red by the sunset was looming over them, waiting to drop and crush the landscape.

Movement on his left immediately gave fraying attention a focus. She stood a few feet away from him and held out a battered leather backpack, half empty and worn thin or cracked in places. It was heavier than it looked. Cor unfastened the leather ties keeping it closed and peered inside. Three more bottles of water, two small potions glowing pale and dim through linen wrapped around to protect them, and a small bundle of rough canvas. Upon investigation, this bag held a roll of dark bread, no bigger than an apple, a few thick strips of something peppered and tough, and two blushing peaches.

Whilst he packed his clothes away and the first bottle away, he started a second and found solace in the cracking of a seal. Rena gathered the dogs with a two tone whistle. He’d never seen them before.

Long-limbed and deep chested, they moved with a tireless lope; the kind that could pursue chosen quarry for days, if need be. Despite the differences in coat colours, both had large, black muzzles and undoubtedly formidable teeth. One bounced around, his tongue lolling and pink as a tail as mottled as an old, stained feather duster, curved and wagged over his back. The other, darker dog, kept her muzzle to the ground and occasionally stood stock still and stared at something in the distance, a threat revealed to nose and ears, but not yet eyes.

They circled closer and formed loops around her, no more than twenty feet away and looking at her for further instruction every few seconds. Rena gave him a final once over and took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s go.”

An all too casual flick of her hand sent the dogs ahead while she followed, mind set on an unknown destination and conscious of her superior’s fraying nerves. She kept him in her peripheral, but her eyes stayed forwards.

Cor stayed where the edge of her vision would blur him, but where he could clearly see her.

That was the thing; no one had seen her for well over a month. She’d always been quiet, but that was _too_ quiet.

The final light of the day revealed the shine of fresh, pink scars across her shoulders and arms. Grazes that had ripped through the skin and burned it. Too broad to blades or claws, and too linear to be bites. Bullets.

Skin was armour, after all. Armour was only worn outwith it for vanity’s sake. The steel was in her being, and she was not alone in that.

Eyes wary, he tended to yet another of his abandoned needs; sustenance. A stomach left empty until it had clawed at him, only to slip down and shrink, roused at the scent of fresh peaches. The fruit was ripe and slightly bruised, but he could’ve sworn the Astrals themselves had never known a sweeter nectar. Saccharin stickiness caught in his beard and down his throat; there was no clean way of eating a peach. There was an innocence to fruit. Stolen from Duscae’s orchards, it tasted as the day’s should’ve; fresh and warm, like summer. It ended the way everything did; with hard truth, stony and unforgiving. That didn’t stop him popping it whole into his mouth and sucking the last shreds of sweetness from fate.

She led him through a world of sky and red dust. Bony shrubs, blanched by strong sun, claws feebly at the sky and snapped even if only lightly brushed. As ridges tore across Leide, Rena followed the sun until blue dripped down and doused the fires of the day. In the midst of the dustbowl valley, bathing in gritty twilight, was a single outcrop. Easily the largest thing for miles except damnedly endless space, it was single red rock, cold with iron and featureless.

As they drew closer, Rena slowed enough to draw level with him. She met the marshal with eyes that held a measured threat. She needed him to listen, and to understand, not just to brush it off. It felt wrong to be advising her superior; a man whose decisions had shaped her life and changed it beyond recognition in less than a year. He hadn’t given her everything, but he’d given her the chance to work for it. Telling him what to do felt inverted, as though the sea had begun to flow into rivers.

One look at Cor reminded her of his shaken state, only made worse by his own, self-imposed neglect. He didn’t need addressed as her commanding officer. Responsibility had been snatched from him, and had left him as little more than a man with a reputation. He was a soldier in need of directive.

“Alright, just… I’ve got a deal, and all going well they’ll pay out today. Keep your head down and if anyone says anything, don’t rise to it,” she advised, voice steady and clear to make sure he listened.

Steel blues lingered under a deepening frown, before glancing at the rock. The polite address was one trained, one that felt pointless. Even if he disagreed, it wouldn’t be enough to stop him.

“That alright, sir?”

Cor tried to read green eyes out of conditioned habit, simply because he knew that he had before. Then again, he’d been misreading for years. When he looked at her, he was reading words that weren’t there. They were ghosts over a page kept deliberately blank, as transient as invisible ink before it dried, disappeared and changed. He was left with that horrid sensation, the one that made his stomach shift and protest.

Uncertainty tugged at every thread of his fraying mind.

He shook himself back to reality. They’d slowed but continued, and were a ten feet away from the rock. A crack split it all the way up, and had broadened enough to let them through before it tapered off to a mere seam above them.

Cor gave a single nod.

After another deep breath, Rena sent the dogs into the dark break in the rock, and turned sideways to follow through the narrow passage. He followed. Familiar fear came within the limits of that channel. The world was defined by stone as his back and hands as he edged through. The only light came from his left in the heavy, pale blue of impending night.

Red came from the right. Deep, rusty orange and swathes danced softly against the smooth stone. Shadows, sharp and swift, crossed it, interrupting the light to promise an altogether more permanent darkness.

When the channel opened up Cor stopped at the very end of it, to stay safe in limited space just a little longer. The rock bore a huge fissure, one that stole the heart of it to provide a large, prong-shaped space. Small tents, no more than lean to’s and no higher than his hip, lined the walls, some in clusters and some alone. Fires were stationed throughout; some as open blazes that threw colour and light at the smooth walls, others as smaller blooms held in roughly carved alcoves along the walls, blackening their nests. It was almost empty, and quiet. Too quiet.

The dogs had noticed it too. They stuck close to her sides, always within arms-reach, and kept their heads low. A few hunters milled about, busy with the idle tasks required by their trade. The walls sang with the sharpening of weapons, logs that hissed and snapped, and the faint scrub of a rifle being cleaned. The soft dust of the floor disguised an approaching dog, but not its owner.

The blond was no taller than Cor, lean and wiry, with a faint scratch of stubble like scattered straw. The dog at his side was a rusty tan, with a white chest and far shorter coat than Rena’s own.

“Well, look what the bitch dragged in,” he smirked, leaning aside to take a look at Cor.

He stayed behind Rena, half-hidden and wholly out of place, not that anyone looking at him would think so. He was a ragged thing, already beginning to waste. He held the hazel gaze for a moment, before dropping steely blues to the floor. “Who do we have here?”

“No fuckin’ idea,” she shook her head. The lie came effortlessly, and far too easy for Cor to trust it, let alone her. “Picked him up a couple miles east. Wasn’t in good shape.”

“He still ain’t, look at him. Shit… Never took you for the charitable type.”

“Fuck off, Lijah,” she smiled. He met her with a sharp grin. It faded at the low growl below.

Seyna had raised her hackles and gone stock still, glaring at his dog while a heated warning rumbled in her throat. As the other dog took a step forwards, head cocked at Ochre and tail wagging incessantly, Seyna flew between them and issued her warning again, deeper. Sadie yelped and whipped behind her owner’s legs to cower.

“You gonna keep an eye on your dog?” he asked, lifting hooded eyes back to Rena as the dispute settled into an uncomfortable, momentary peace. “Seems she’s got herself a temperament. Might wanna watch that.”

“I’ll have a word with her,” Rena jested, shrugging lightly as she folded her arms. What was left of a smile as thin and crooked as a crescent moon fell from his face.

“That bitch takes one more step towards my dog, I’ll kill both of ‘em.” He pointed to both Seyna and Ochre. “Sadie’s the best tracker we’ve got, hell the best I’ve ever-.”

“Keep your dog’s nose where it belongs and we won’t have a fuckin’ issue.”

She stood firm, locked on him. Seyna had fallen silent, but the raised ridge of fur along her back and high, puffed out tail, made her markedly bigger, and more formidable. The revelation came with Ochre. Like Cor, he was hiding behind her, head low and eyes on the ground. Hazel hues had gone as hard as oak, but they were facing down a vibrant, deep green, the type of poison and serpents, one that could seep and convince.

His frown broke for a huge grin as he loosened his posture, rocking on his heels.

“Ha! Missed your ‘no bullshit’ rule,” Lijah laughed dryly. “This your last one?”

“Depends. If I’m not getting paid it’s _your_ last one.”

He threw his head back and barked a laugh. A playful frown held over sharp features and a crooked nose when he brought his focus back to her.

“Shittin’ on my reputation. I’m tempted to send you back to that shithole you crawled from, but I don’t trust ya not to bring friends.” He jutted his chin towards Cor for a moment. “We’re movin’ in out in five, you bringin’ that with you?”

“Yeah, he’s coming.”

“Alright, I’ll meet y’all out back,” he said. Lijah dropped to a crouch and smirked at Seyna, inches from her face as lips twitched to bare her teeth. “Don’t forget to bring your bitch, alright?”

He gave Rena a smile as sweet as the swathe of cigarette smoke that reeked around him, turned on his heels and stalked away into the main body of the cavern. The lake of sky bordered by a stone shore was deepening as it traded red for blue and hot for the frigid emptiness of a desert night, when even dust froze and burst.

Seyna’s hackles fell, but she remained unnervingly quiet as Sadie followed her owner, staying close by his side. With a deep breath, it was as though Rena had done the same. Her shoulders loosened slightly before she shook her head. She glanced over her shoulder and met the steely blue of the marshal amidst his clouding thoughts.

“C’mon. Let’s get this done.”

With few better options, Cor followed as she led through the scraping of a base. The air didn’t move, held stagnant and so thick with the scent of dogs and sweat that it seemed stained. Trickles of smoke rose from the fires, painting the walls sooty black in places while in others they grew and spread like tall, silver trees. On the other side, she approached yet another gap in the encircling wall and slipped through.

The back of the rock was somewhat shrouded by a few thick, thorn bushes. They hemmed in a small space, big enough to conceal two battered trucks. The steel holds were dented, scraped and strewn with bullet holes. All around them, hunters sniffed, spat and laughed, cigarettes glowing and dogs fidgeting.

There was something about the air. It was pent. Tense. Coiled like a snake to strike, or a dog held back by its collar, eager to run and catch. He felt caged, but that the sensation wouldn’t last long. It was something that put heat under boots and paws, and willed them to move.

Cor followed, and would’ve been lost if he hadn’t, as Rena moved to the back of a truck and gestured lightly for Cor to go inside. When he stood still and refused to move, she breathed a low sigh and sent the dogs in, then climbed after them. Cor made a routine sweep, though it was far shakier than ones he’d taken before. The bushes circled them to the rock, and there were another half a dozen hunters at the other truck. If he ran, he’d be caught or shot. There was the slimmest chance he’d slip all of them.

Then the dogs came into play. They’d be able to scent him out, if they chose.

Something frantic gripped Cor. There were too many options, too many outcomes. They crowded around him like a flock of birds, all claws and beaks as they tore into him. It mocked him for being unable to choose.

“Hey, come on.”

The low, smooth tone spooked the birds away and brought him crashing back to where he stood. Green eyes were locked on him, reading every fine detail written in the lines of his face as they pulled a deeper frown. The ease with which she hid in plain sight was unnerving and yet he knew it well.

Cor shook the thought from his head and clambered into the truck.

The interior was empty and cramped. Either side had a low bench of battered tread plate steel, held up with rusting hinges. The damage to the steel box he was to sit in for the next few hours was torn and puckered by the ghosts of bullets. Rust had chewed at the steel in patches, and made it thin enough for light to shine like a paper lantern.

There were two men. Dark skinned and soft-featured, they spoke quietly in a tongue he didn’t recognise as Cor stepped past Rena and set himself down on her bench.

One, with tight coils of thick, black hair, had an entire pistol dismantled and set across his lap in a vague imitation of organisation. He took each part and brushed it down, first with a clean brush, then one swirled in charcoal paste. He blackened the metal until it vanished into the darkness of the closed truck. Dark eyes flicked up to Cor. He nodded once, gently, and then returned to his task. Simply by moving his head, he revealed the copper stud pierced into the side of his nose and the bar through the top of his ear.

The other wore his hair in a long braid, slick and black, as it coiled at the back of his head. With a ring on his thumb, he slowly leafed through a stack of worn, tea-stained pages. They were no bigger than his hand, and there was no more than an inch of them, but the soft murmurs he gave as he read them were of captivation, of solemn prayer and the weak, fragile hope of a suffering man.

The engine coughed and wheezed to start, then took up its hoarse melody as gears were climbed. Each and every stray stone that passed under the tires could be felt, until it faded into the thrum of steady speed.

Aware of his own pointed expression, Cor set his eyes on the ground and tried not to think. Each moment he spent trying, the weight became heavier. It blamed him, damned and cursed him to dwell on, to continue. Cor was a pallbearer, carrying grief, and yet the thought of setting it down, of letting go and leaving them for the tides of time and history to take, felt _wrong._ It was non-committal and insincere. He’d bear the weight until the bitter end. Rather that than allow them to be forgotten.

Forgetting would allow it to happen again, he was sure of that much.

The thought of that brand being forced into his back again was a bitter one indeed. It would be worse than the others, because Cor had watched him grow up. He’d held him as an infant, one unaware of being anything other than alive, and watched that blissful ignorance fall from him as each breaking wave of reality through the years brought revelations that had puzzled the boy, and silenced the man he trying to become. Cor’s failures had left Noctis an orphan, and had every potential to leave him dead.

As the marshal remained silent at her side, Rena swallowed from a dry mouth. A high, absent whine came with a nudge to her hand. Ochre’s large, warm muzzle pushed under her palm. After a few strokes over the top of his head, she pushed the bandana tied around his neck aside. He stopped breathing when she pressed her fingertips against the patch of crusted fur. They withdrew from the wound unstained and scentless. Clean. It was a small victory. Tearing Sadie from him had been the easy part; keeping Seyna from Sadie had proved harder.

Time was marked only by the changing of limited light. Twilight gave way to deep blue, blue for the speckled black and cold air that frosted the steel at her shoulders. Her eyelids were heavy. A sharp bite to the tip of her tongue jolted her awake.

All but blinded by the darkness, Rena listened out. The quiet snores of the other men as they slept propped up against each other almost masked a subtler sound. The shallow, steady tide of the marshal could only mean one thing; he was asleep. A glance to her side that turned into a squint took a moment to reveal the image to her. Still, rough and heavy, he’d dropped from a torturous consciousness until his chin rested on his chest. The rhythmic rise and fall was one he’d been denied for days.

It carried on, even as the truck ground to a halt. Rena straightened up in her seat and peered through the windscreen. The bright pools granted by flickering headlights revealed nothing but shrubs like skeletal hands and the gravelled dirt that faded into limitless expanse. The two men stirred at the open and subsequent close of the passenger side door as a stranger hopped in.

Fine, dark hair gathered into a bun, he scratched at the mess of a beard coating his jaw and settled with a ragged sigh.

“Quiet as hell out there,” he rasped, sniffing loudly enough to stir the men again. Cor remained still and steady, fast asleep.

“Sure is,” Lijah nodded as he began to drive again. “What’s the word?”

“Nothin’ much. Daemons here, a couple infected sabers there. Same ol’ shit.”

Pale grey eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. They lingered on Cor for a moment too long before flicking to Rena. She closed her eyes just in time, head lowered to her chest in a mockery of sleep. She could feel his gaze stuck to her, narrowed as she mimicked the breathing of the sleeping men; shallow but steady, with long enough pauses to convince him.

“Got wind of a couple quieter jobs.”

Lijah tilted his head as he drove through the endless expanse. “Not that shit again, Saul.”

“Nah, nah, nah. City’s dead, though. Picked clean. Well, clean as it can be with bodies everywhere.”

“No supplies?”

“A metric tonne of jack shit. Crownsguard headquarters are a pile of rubble,” he said. Rena heard the scratching of nails against his beard again. “Couple folks are sayin’ the Immortal made it out.”

“Shit… Some of the things he’s done. Parents used to tell us stories about him. Guy’s incredible.”

“Yeah? The Nifs want him.”

“Well, I ain’t surprised,” Lijah reasoned. Rena felt the truck tilt as he turned. “He’s about the only one left.”

“Got his little snitches hidin’ everywhere. Took two more of em out last week.”

“Even more reason for them to look for him,” he said. There was a pang of hopelessness to his tone; one that was held towards the fall of heroes.

Saul continued, but lowered his voice. “Nah, man… _The Nifs want him.”_

There was something in the way he said it. Some dark confirmation, one that invited with all the bloody intent of wild dogs. It was sharp and shining.

Silence from the front seat set her teeth on edge. Rena took a chance and let her eyes open ever so slightly, so little her gaze would remain undetected. In that narrow vision, she saw the hazel eyes gather on Cor and widen slightly. He set his focus on the road again and spoke under his breath, but she heard.

“How much are they offering?”

“Twenty.”

Lijah scoffed and shook his head. “Holy shit…”

“Uh-huh. And that’s just the head… You game?”

He hissed a quiet breath between his teeth. Rena could hear the wicked excitement in his smile.

“Twenty splits nice between two.”

“That it does.”

Once again, it felt wrong. He was the most capable, impressive man she’d ever met. He was a living legend, and yet she needed to shoehorn him out of yet another trap. At least this time, he hadn’t laid it himself.

Time was tracked through bullet holes and slashes put into the battered metal, until rust was illuminated by the dawn, day and finally another dusk. Cor never slept for long. He dropped back into the hard existence of consciousness more than was cruel. The lull of an engine, of motion and limited space was a temptation that made an already leaden soul heavier, coaxed it to sleep.

That lullaby died. It was choked by a calm hand turning the key and making that one, final decision. Lijah and Sael stepped out and didn’t bother to shut their doors. The booming of a fist against the metal box that had shielded them from an entire day roused the other two. After watching them claw and grip consciousness, he turned to his side.

He was afforded a brief silhouette when the doors at the back of the cargo hold were opened. Features held in a hard expression that the years would bolden, Rena had leant her head back and kept her eyes open. They screwed half shut when the burning light of sunset bounced from the rock and poured thickly into the truck.

The two men shuffled out first, followed by her dogs and then herself. Cor forced stiff limbs, almost stonecast in a position he’d held for far too long, and stepped onto soft dirt as blood returned to his legs.

The two patrol crews that had returned amounted to a dozen hunters, and their dogs. Whilst their own had returned yawning and stiff, a glance to the other group told a different story. Five men and one woman, again. She walked tall with a stubborn grace that was all the refusal of a thin tree to being toppled. The uneven gait she kept was one that made Rena clench her jaw.

The next dozen were geared up and ready, armed with shoddy weapons and cigarettes. The ratio was the same, five men to one woman. The next pair were smaller.

One was so silent she could’ve slipped back into the rock, her nails bloody and broken as her eyes held a stare only weeks of sleepless nights could provide. She barely reacted as the rest of her group jostled and shouldered into one another, trading lighters and laughs. There was nothing they could do to her that they hadn’t already done.

The other was armed to the teeth, guns at her hips and more than enough ammunition to take all of them out. She held a fierce expression and an unpleasant turn to her mouth. That didn’t stop her pulling in on herself and fixing her eyes on the ground whenever one of them stepped closer.

“The hell took y’all so long?” A short man with beady black eyes asked. He dabbed the sweat from his brow with a yellowed rag and bit his bottom lip for a moment too long. “Supposed to be on patrol, not out there havin’ a gangbang!”

A rough chorus of laughter echoed against the rock and drowned in Cor’s mind.

She was still walking, determined and private, as she led back to the camp. When she glanced over her shoulder to check he was still following, he was reminded of one cruel fact; her age.Her stillness had always captured his interest, but without the ability give it orders, he was unsettled by it. Barely twenty and yet she’d shown none of the fear that was reserved for a young woman in a confined space with five armed men. She tread on a special grade of cut glass; one false move and blood would be drawn in one way or another, and this was not the first time she’d gone on patrol and paced on the traps.

Meanwhile, he had slept. Allowed himself absence from his mind and left her at whim. She’d never admit it, never let it go any further than it had before. Monica’s investigation had been stunted; Rena wanted nothing more than to leave her trial for the Glaive behind. Clarus’ revelation after the swearing ceremony was one he’d refused to believe. He _knew_ Drautos.

Or so he’d thought.

She’d hate him even more.

Rena lead him back through the base, all the way to the end where a lean-to of rough canvas was propped up with bony branches. She sent the dogs in before ducking down and slipping into what little she could barely call her own. Cor hitched the sagging jeans up and withheld a groan as he crouched and let himself into the tent.

It was completely empty, save a thin bedroll backed against the stone of the wall. She’d left nothing behind.

_She doesn’t trust them._

_Don’t trust her._

As Cor sat himself down, too stiff to maintain such an uncomfortable pose, both of the dogs curled up on the bedroll and watched. She swung her rucksack around to the front and put it down, before rummaging through it. Rena withdrew a small bundle of linen, careful to keep it steady. The dogs brightened immediately and stood, tails wagging as they whined for the contents. She placed it down and opened the fabric up, continually nudging them away as she spoke.

“I’m gonna go see about getting paid. It might take a little while, so maybe get some rest,” she suggested, brows raised at him momentarily as she plucked eggs from the tiny bundle she’d kept.

Speckled and in half a dozen tones, she gathered an even number into each hand before setting them down in front of the dogs. They still waited on her instruction, and once given it, the wet crunching of shells filled an otherwise silent surrounding.

“Alright, sir?”

He fought hit focus away from the mess of blood and yolks the dogs had busied themselves with and met eyes that continued to make him unsteady. There was something in them, an echo of familiarity that had been weakened by months spent back in the very environment that had made her, one that had allowed her to be sworn in early and trusted with missions he’d refuse to give to anyone else. Missions given purely because she was the best one for the job, and disposable.

It was a cold attitude, clinical and harsh, but one he’d needed to have for decades now.

Still, he’d trusted her to teach them. He’d trusted her to bring them back safe, to keep them alive, and she’d managed. Through everything that had gone wrong, she had managed, and none of them had ever disagreed with her reports.

He’d trusted her to be his ears. To comb the outlands for information. Daemons, Magitek, Niflheim. She’d found nothing. War had been on the horizon, and she’d had nothing to say about it.

Cor was a great believer that if things seemed too good to be true, they were. For all he knew, she may have already known what he was asking her for.

“Sir?”

She pressed again. Cor damned himself for leaving his guard down once more, too distracted by possibilities. Uncertainty was something he was growing to loathe.

“Course, I’ll uh…”

Rena watched him carefully. It was as though she’d slapped the thoughts from his mind, dashed them away like pieces on a board after she’d memorised them. He was already beginning to cloud again. It passed when she spoke once more.

“Alright.”

Cor listened carefully as he fixed on middle distance, blindly hearing her walk away. It was when he regained focus, that the point he’d landed on made itself perfectly clear; her rucksack.

_Don’t._

_If she’s nothing to hide, she won’t mind._

Steely blue eyes gave the dogs a quick glance as they retreated from the damp mess on a dusty stone floor and curled up on the bedroll. Neither flinched when he leant forwards and knelt over the bag. A quick moment listening to the quiet campsite gave nothing but the huffs of the dogs and a few sparking logs.

Shaking, weathered hands untied the leather binds and opened the bag. The first few items told him nothing more than what he knew; a few bottles of water and a small bundle of food, the same as she’d given him. Then came a fold of pale fabric. Expecting potions, he pulled it away. He was met by books.

He plucked out the first. Messy scrawl littered the pages, between small sketches of plants and mushrooms, cut out segments of maps that revealed their locations. _Poisons?_ In his haste, he couldn’t make out the writing. He leafed through the pages in a fit before clapping the book shut and casting it aside.

The next was more revealing, a trait that immediately slowed him down. It was thicker, pages so translucent they seemed to form solid colour. Half of them were darkened by contents, while the others remained empty and ready to receive.

The first few photographs told him nothing of interest. Small, potted herbs. The dogs that were currently fast asleep at his side, though they looked vastly different. In those photographs, they were softer. Playful. Bowing or batting at each other, they were not the quiet, solemn dogs in the tent. Something had changed them. Made them harder.

Cor didn’t let himself spend long ruminating on the likeness shared between dogs and their owners, and whether that extended to the character of each and both.

As he continued flicking through another’s life, what struck him was the simplicity. She held a calm appreciation for the basics of life; food, seasons, the dogs.

Cor had to stop himself at the page where a hand far more tanned than her own appeared, half buried in the dark coat of a dog. He turned slower. The hand appeared again. And again. Then with hers. Each page brought a new revelation. The quiet intimacies and softness of those he’d pitted against each other were shown in captured moments that simply bled _good._ It was the golden ooze of yolk as it escaped a cracked shell; the richer, brighter, flavourful moments of life. The treasures.

Pages passed and seasons changed in the photographs, from the frost of winter to the first blossoms of spring. Observations of each other were written in the pictures that seemed to be duplicates, only for the second to show amber eyes having flicked up and a smile having spread at being caught. And then she joined him. Instants captured from his high angle, a beaming smile on one while the other blushed. Time showed crumpled sheets as a background to twined fingers and the drowsy observations of each other. There was a tenderness that defied what he knew of them, and made him think again.

Clarity couldn’t have been stronger than that final moment.

He remembered that day. Rain had battered headquarters and soaked paperwork he’d left by the window. The photograph had been captured by someone else. _Likely the Argentum boy._ Already soaked, they’d hidden from the downpour and the world in one of the alcoves along the stone walls of headquarters. Completely wrapped in each other and lost to it, both pale and tanned hands held the other close and disappeared into dark hair. The kiss was strong, and captured in a dynamic he was sure would make it move right in front of his eyes.

Cor sat back on his heels and closed the book. He’d thrown himself into a pit of snakes, and been shown honey instead of venom. Their’s had been secret, stowed and kept safe. It had been sown in the autumn, left to grow and only begun to reveal itself in spring. It was a harvest cut short; a field burned by the lies of a false peace and the flames of a war.

But Gladiolus had made no mention of her when he’d met them at the Norduscaean. He’d been quiet in lulls, yes, but that much was expected of a young man who’d just lost his father, and was being kept from his only remaining family. He bore the weight of his world, and Noctis’. There had been something about him. Some loss that wasn’t entirely answered for, one that had deepened his frown and hardened his chest.

Try as he may, Gladiolus couldn’t hide from Cor. He’d watched him grow, from a tiny toddler with endless curiosity, to a young boy, already long-limbed and clumsy for it. As much as he laughed and beamed, emotions had always wracked him. Fear, then anger for being afraid. It was a bitter twisting in his gut that had the power to bring him to tears and make him ill at times. Gladiolus hated one thing, and it was his own fury. But a boy with heavy purpose needed something to make him lift the sword, again and again and again.

Cor remembered the day Gladiolus arrived for a training session and laughed less, struck harder and never forgave his mistakes, no matter how trivial they were. That was the day he’d understood precisely how crippling loss could be. That had been the start of it. They’d taken a boy as soft and harmless as good earth, and with all the potential to match, and thrown him into a furnace until the ore had given pure metals, something they could use, hone and temper. Sharpen. They’d made him into a weapon, something he always had and hadn’t meant to be.

A light scuff of boots tore him back to his present time and place. He threw the contents of the bag back together, in order, and tied the straps. He’d only just moved back to where he’d been sitting before when the flap of the tent moved.

His hand was in the armiger the moment a dark head of hair poked into the tent. After a hand bound in white linen swept the frayed curls back, he stayed himself. Loosened to her wilder elements, she bore familiar colours in different shapes and a hard expression that gave him nothing. Cor didn’t draw a blade, but neither did he remove his hand.

She shouldered into the tent and immediately pulled on her rucksack, hands coursing through the dogs’ fur as they rose to greet her.

“Alright, that’s us square. Uhm…” she trailed off, choosing her words carefully. Too carefully. She may have been treading on thin ice, but she also carried the pickaxe. Green at a depth he hadn’t seen for decades was dark in the dim light as she locked on him. “I think we should-.”

“Why did you leave him?”

Rena went completely still and stared at him.

The moment her frown began to gather and mouth began to move to give an answer, he spoke again.

“Gladio. Why did you leave him?”

Dark brows drew into a frown as Cor made his demand in a quiet tone that was little more than sheer tectonism.

“Did you even tell him you were being dismissed?” He shook his head, as though it would rattle the pieces in his mind until he understood. “Why-?”

“With all due respect sir, that’s none of your business.”

Rena had spoken with no more tone than blunt delivery, markedly cool from the fire that had made her interrupt. The hardness she’d shown made her features bolder. She stared him down until the morbid curiosity in his eyes gave way to recognition. Rena used that time to still herself and bite back harsher words. She’d said what was needed, and would say little more.

“We need to go.”

Cor stirred at her finality. There was something brutal about it, as though there was no way around it, and it had confirmed far more than she knew. For all she was unreadable, she was giving herself away and meeting his every expectation.

He fought away the rising arguments in his mind when she clenched her jaw and looked at the dogs. With what little dim firelight that pushed through the canvas and the reflective nature of her own paleness, her skin had a smoothness to it only afforded by youth. She was reconsidering, though he didn’t quite know what. Regret was a trait of the young. Souls his age accepted what had been done, whether it was with bitterness or grace.

It fell heavy in his gut. Her skills made it easy to forget her age and the nature of the years that had taught her them, even though he knew nothing about that. Young, alone, and whilst capable, it was a different kind of threat. In refusing her proposition, he’d told her to stay there and continue to pace on cut glass.

Cor knew almost nothing about her, and yet one crucial detail made him pity her. She’d be hunted for it, stained for the rest of her life and unable to outrun it, all because men had made their decisions.

He also knew that it was something to run from. It was a harsh lesson, but he had learned it. It wasn’t even coolness in her expression, it was simply hard. Solid as cast stone and ceaselessly concealing her thoughts. There was no greater camouflage than hiding in plain sight, and Cor had very keeping his mind from fraying again. There was iron in her, and blood. He knew.

“I’ll uh… I’ll meet you back here. All that water… Nature calls.”

She watched him carefully through his answer, and nodded once he’d given his reasoning.

“Alright.”

Cor left the tent on stiff legs and quickly locked on a gap in the wall. He squeezed himself through and breathed free air again, one that didn’t carry a familiar scent. Thorned shrubs faced him, and hid him from any further prying eyes. Everything told him to run. If they were looking for her, they’d find him and if they found him, they could lure Noctis.

She was dangerous enough as it was.

The photographs flashed in the forefront of his mind. The past could be sweet, but not trusted. Everything about it was unlikely and yet make perfect sense. He’d pitched them against each other in pursuit of finding a victor. Cor had watched when Gladio had almost killed her, before she’d pinned him and slammed him back into his own mind.

But they were soft.

The two sides of his mind were warring again, battling with uncertainties as weapons and deafening him in their clamour. It was as though the two of them had simply walked in, hands joined and quiet as they were observed. The bellowing men who’d fought it out had fallen silent at their presence, like parents caught arguing by their child. It was something of his creation; Cor had played a hand.

Something about it settled him. It gave him a glimpse of something he _needed_. Certainty.

He’d be hunted if anyone knew who he was.

She’d be killed if anyone knew what she was.

Nifs, Lucians, anyone paid enough, would track them down.

They could protect each other. Keep each other safe, even if they didn’t know why they were running. Alone, and with one less person come back for, Cor doubted that they’d fight as hard. Raising the stakes would force them to raise their standards. _That_ could protect them. They were little more than children, after all, and the sins of the father are not the sins of the son, even though blame would be laid for those left unprotected.

With his decision made, he turned away from the sky that was just beginning to dot with stars, and made for the rock. He fixed his gaze on his watch and felt himself calm with every tick.

A newly familiar voice came from the stone. “Well… Look who we have here.”

“If it ain’t Cor the Immortal.”

A knife pushed into the fresh brand, and made his jaw clench. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he recognised Lijah, but not the stranger. Bearded and broad, but a few inches shorter than Cor, moonlight glinted along the curved edge of an axeblade. Cor glanced at Lijah, and the long knife fixed in his hand. He met their eyes again and stood perfectly still.

“Lotta people lookin’ for ya… Must feel nice, being a celebrity and all,” Saul nodded, sticking his tongue into his cheek as he measured the roughened marshal.

“A couple of em even offerin’ money, but you don’t need to know about that,” Lijah grinned, his crooked teeth only menacing him further.

“See, folks around here… We got sick of your type not listenin’ thirty years ago, and we’re more than happy to flush you out and hand you over. S’nothing personal. Just business.”

Tall, stern and still, Cor watched them both and refrained from putting his hand into the armiger.

“Course, we can’t exactly trust you to go nicely, so we think they’d be happy with just a head.”

Lijah stood all too casually for a man with a knife in his hand. With one hand bracing his back, he watched Saul hold his conversation, attempt to lull a false sense of security over the ragged soldier in front of him. As he did, Lijah slipped his hand down until he found the wooden grip of the pistol.

“...So do us all a favour, and hold real still.”

Lijah grinned sweetly as Cor stood and faced them both, adrenaline beginning to burn in his gut.

“Won’t hurt a b-.”

The last of his breath left him as an unshapen huff. Hazel eyes flew wide. There was a hand clamped over his mouth and another clenched in a fist as it pressed flush to his throat. There was a moment of still understanding before deep, dark red began to flood from his mouth and throat as he choked. It slipped through and stained the white linen binding those hands and painted them in his colours.

Lijah crumpled to the ground with a dull thud. Her hands were dripping. Deep green eyes flashed when an axe head flew at her. Rena stepped back and let him swing. He bared his teeth and cut at her again.

This time, she caught it. With her forearm braced against his, crossed to stop him striking, she grabbed a fistful of his hair, spun behind him and drew a thick, red line across his throat until his head tilted further back than it ever could’ve in life. The gaping wound bled thickly. With the flesh rendered useless and scarlet pouring down over his chest, she dropped him to the ground.

Silent and wide eyed, Cor had just witnessed her fulfil prophecy and become the consequence of her own creation.

Rena looked at them with morbid curiosity. Dark brows drew together gently as she tried to make sense of it. Something was missing. Where was the wrongness? The sensation that the blood was going to stain and never leave her? It was silken and warm, dripping from her fingers as it joined the blending puddle on the ground. It felt so still, simple and irreversible. Easy. It felt quiet.

Cor watched her play the thoughts in her mind, though it was blurred like bodies under a sheet. He was about to speak when she casually swiped Saul’s axe from the ground and hacked it into the wound she’d left on Lijah’s throat. The knife that had fallen from his hand was put back into a loose grip, bloodied from its landing. Without warning, Cor heard the sickening crack of shattering bone. The kick she’d given Saul’s broad, already crooked nose, was clinical and precise, aimed to break it. After smearing the blood from her hands off onto his face, she wiped her hands on her jeans and padded to the edge of her bloody canvas. Rena toed off one boot, before stepping onto dry ground and removing the other.

It was simple deception. Stage, theatre, complete with cast and storyline. She’d played god, the silent and final hand of judgement.

Cor knew that role. He’d been judge, jury and executioner more times than was necessary to keep him awake at night. He dragged every corpse he’d made behind him. They were shackled to chains and that iron was fixed in his bones, only to become heavier as the years took their toll. There was something hellish in providing an end, some tearing at his soul, that came each time blood was drawn or boots were sent to draw it at his instruction.

But she was just standing there, mapping the mess of her creation once more before dark green eyes flicked up to Cor and pinned him with a neutral gaze, nowhere near threatening but the shade was enough to warn him. The blue of the heavy, impending night had cloaked her from the star’s judgement and shown that smoothness to her again. It was young skin interrupted by old scars, one on her cheek that marked as his.

“Are you-?”

“We should go.”

Rena didn’t jolt at the scuttle of bushes; she merely whistled and called her dogs from their hiding places. She turned on her heel and sent them away to sweep ahead and warn of anything heading for her. It took a moment for Cor to follow. Long strides quickly let him draw level with a tireless gait.

He opened his mouth to speak and had to stop himself. Now was not the time.

“Rena, are you sure-?”

“With all due respect, sir, I can give a shit later,” she assured, as though it was nothing.

She’d spoken too quickly and if her tone had been sharper, she’d have snapped at him. She carried on, setting her focus on a distance marked by stars turning away before they could crash. Rena fought to order the threads, to make sense of it, but few words could be formed by a single straight line. They’d crossed a mile of nothing but grit, shrubs strewn like shards of broken glass that had been bleached from their original green, and endless, heavy sky, before Rena muttered calmly under her breath.

“Welcome to the Corsguard, I guess.”

The ghost of humour was not well received.

Expression sharpened to a fine edge, he stepped in her way and glared at her. She stood firm and steady through the tone of burning discipline. Though he kept his voice low, it was all the more bitter for it.

“You’ve just killed two men in cold blood! Don’t you understand that?!”

She was silent, watching him with large, dark eyes.

It was infuriating. Her lack of consideration, her simple act of moving on and leaving it to time and the night was one that made his skin chill with familiarity. It had been precise. Minimal. The only difference had been her lack of ceremony, of investment. It was everything her origins had tuned her for; necessary violence.

Rena had made the decision on instinct. It was one aspect that held binary for her; the certainty granted by kill or be killed.

There was a reason uncertainty was so bitter for Cor. It was the question that came before every kill, and every order. It was in every shade of grey and shifted constantly. In his experience, uncertainty was always followed by blood, and rarely his own.

She was able to walk away, leave the bodies where they lay, and how he envied her for it.

“Do you have _any_ humanity? At all?”

A growled sigh left her throat.

“No? Nothing to say for yourself-?”

“Oh, _fuck you!”_

Cor balked, then burned the expression away with a glare. He took a vice grip of her wrist and caught the fist she threw at him in his palm and crushed it until he saw the defiance in her eyes shake.

“I asked you a question, private! I expect you to answer it and with due to respect, do you understand me?!”

“Get fu-.”

_“Do you understand me, or not?!”_ he bellowed.

Rena’s jaw tensed, teeth bared and she kept the cruel expression fixed on her face as she stared back at him. She tried not to wince when he squeezed her wrist harder, feeling her own pulse fight against his hand as he threatened to stop it in its entirety. The words left her meekly for her own liking.

“Let go.”

“Answer me, Rena, and don’t you _dare_ lie to me,” Cor ground out.

She jolted at being kept still and trapped. “Let _fucking_ go of me!”

“No!”

“Why not?!” she demanded shaking her hands in his grip again, pushing at him to try and pull herself away.

_“Because you don’t understand!_ You don’t know how this works- you don’t know what’s out there, waiting for you! You have no idea!”

She wrenched from his grip and threw a punch, locked on his temple. It was enough. More than enough. She didn’t want to hear it anymore.  

“ _I_ have no idea?! I’ve been out here for my entire miserable fucking life! You haven’t been here in how long?! Don’t fucking try to tell me how the world works, I-.”

Cor’s fist rammed into her ribs before she could land the hit, and he saw her eyes water. Still burning with it, he took a hard handful of her hair and glared at her, fierce as he had to be while he had her by the scruff of her neck. He forced her to the side, throat open and exposed enough to widen her eyes to the risk. He could snap her neck if he wanted to, and the fistfuls of his shirt she clung to told him they she knew.

She’d gone without discipline for too long and he’d keep her there all night if he had to. However long it took her to drop the fury and be biddable again.

“You _don’t_ , Rena,” he growled, voice low and as hard and gritty as the earth beneath their feet. “You don’t even know what you are.”

Her teeth were bared, but Cor saw the tear slip from eyes that refused to meet his own.

It fell on him too fast and cold, like a flood of cold water thrown from a roof. Cor let go, almost casting her from his hands and stepped back, boots crunching on the hard grit of Leiden ground. He stared at his hands, at every callous made thicker by weeks of dirt clinging to his skin, and barely recognised them.

Ice blue eyes flicked up and mapped her face as it held harsh lines, a few scars and the silvery cut of a tear over her cheek. It had caught in the scar Drautos had given her, as though he were cutting her from beyond the grave. He’d no sooner let her forget his salt than she herself would allow the shame of crying to lift from her.

In that moment, as he had dozens of times in instants and fleeting seconds, Cor saw her for what she was; barely finished being a child even though she’d stopped years before. To grow fierce, she’d lost friendliness and had no time for the subtleties and nuances and other people. To be hard, she’d lost her softness and had no time for those who clung to theirs. She gave what she had, got what she could and left it at that.

Rena was a ragged thing. A child made bitter by the salt she used to clean her own wounds. She was steel, but she was rust. She was tough as leather, but not armour. She was nothing, she knew it and had no argument against it.

But Cor knew she was far more than she, or anyone, had thought.

“Rena-.”

He barely saw the bloody fist that flew at him, and heard the echo of her punch at his temple before the night lost its stars.


	22. Fidelity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bested in combat by none other than the Imperial High Commander, Ravus Nox Fleuret, Gladiolus' faith in his capabilities as Shield to the King are left bruised and shaking. With nowhere else to turn in a world frantically trying to find its feet, he calls upon his mentor.

He was soaked. Blinded by the endless downpour, as though Ramuh had changed his mind and decided to retake the covenant, Gladio kept his eyes on the mud dusted with the debris of the woods. It lingered like flotsam and jetsam; the cast casings of pine needles and fresh, lush branches dropped sodden on the forest floor. Steady footsteps splashed ahead, the ground too soaked to take any more water and conceal them from anything that could hear over the rain.

Many things were proving to be more than they could take, or had ever dealt with before.

Torrents softened by their stilted landing, from branch to bough until the drops finally met the ground they were destined for, they didn’t speak. There was very little to be said. Gladio almost feared the sharpness of his own tongue as time wicked over its edge like a whetstone. He’d spoken carelessly, and with too much heat, to one of the last of his kind.

Silent and stern, he’d known Cor to be softer at times. Never vulnerable, but with enough perception to adjust his temperament. The sight of him walking on alone, though followed at a distance, tugged at Gladio.

Cor truly was alone.

Gladio could still dip his hand into the armiger and find it shifting in constant change. There were times, and they’d made his heart sharpen, when he could feel weapons being grabbed in haste and put back reluctantly after far too long. Each step away felt like one in the wrong direction, but it still wasn’t enough to make him turn back.

There was very little that could make him turn back now.

Ignis’ words were steady in his mind, as they had been for months. So much had changed based on that simple statement and its understanding.

_No one can stop you._

That was only half of it. There was a counterpart, one that had fallen silent and remained undetected. Small things touched him and given reminders, though he worked hard to focus his mind and keep his goal, _his purpose_ , clear.

But rain was only one syllable away from her name, and he kept correcting it. It was just as soft, it tasted the same, and it had seeped into him.

Gladio clenched his jaw for a moment and carried on as Cor led up the hill and turned another of the hairpin bends. The trail had been all but washed away, all its softness sloughed by torrential rain until mudstained gravel was all that remained of it. With the trees thick about them and rain blurring the already limited horizon, Gladio couldn’t help but feel lost. He hadn’t seen the sun all day and cloud had blurred its rise. There were no landmarks here to tell him where he was, to hint east from west and north from south. There was little but trees, mud and mountain.

Cor turned again. Gladio could hear his steps change. Soaked to the skin and chilling, he followed on. Another glance at the back of the Marshal’s head reminded him of his own age.

Gladio had followed the back of that head to countless lectures, disciplines and lessons, often rolled into one. The best way for him to learn had been to involve all of him, to test the body as they stretched the mind and put fire in the spirit. Whether Gladio had been summoned to report to his father, or to train with the man they now called traitor, one who’d taught him brutality as an art of reflection, it was always Cor that had led him to either fate.

He’d idolized him in his early years, rebelled against him as the tempest of his second decade tested him, and finally learned to live with healthy respect, to take guidance with a pinch of salt, and to help where he could to pay back his debts. There were few lessons the Marshal had left to teach him, but the man had many yet to give.

The trees thinned. As the slope levelled from the steep incline they’d followed for hours, a clearing stood veiled in the thin, soaking rain, the type that set mists about mountains. It rose up, a white incarnation of a haven spire, broad and silken as smoke.

What lay in the centre, amongst tall grass and a few boulders with dew-softened moss, was a cabin. The low panelled walls were peeling from the deep, spruce green paint, crusted by lichen and interlocked at the corners. Some shingles were absent from the roof, like an old fighting fish, as a stone chimney stack rose from the bowed ridge. The house was as crippled and stubborn as a hermit, digging its nails into the solitude of remoteness even though that very concept had bound it to the spot with simple gravity.

Cor trudged to the small, squint door with little hesitation, twisted the iron ring handle and gently shouldered against the rain-swollen wood to open it. Timber scraped dully against flagstone. He ducked inside, dripping and paled by the cold, before Gladio shook the worst from his hair and crouched into the rare patch of dryness.

For all the floor was dry enough to be stained and slicked by their soaked footprints, the air was as damp as the rest of the forest, allowed to seep in around the door and through the gaps in rare, dark shuttered windows. As he closed the door behind them, and dulled the sound of the rain, Gladio’s fingertips lingered on the doorframe. Moss was stuffed around the edges of the thin, weathered wood and filled the would-be gaps in the walls. For all it was old and decrepit, it was entirely functional.

The squeak of a hinge gathered his attention. Cor held his hand up to the small cabinet as it tilted dangerously from the wall, half-facing the very floor it would land and splinter on if treated too harshly, and turned towards Gladio with something in his hand. He held out the small, deceptively heavy bundle of canvas, its four corners bound by a small leather tie, and shook it gently. Frowning gently, Gladio reached out and took it, then the bottle of water offered afterwards.

“Eat that and get some sleep. I’ll be on watch,” Cor turned his attention away, quietly picked up a chair and carried it under his arm as he stepped for the door again, his own bundle held in a weathered hand. Steely blue eyes watched the young man in his distraction before earthen brown met his gaze. “We leave at dawn.”

“You… You sure you don’t want me to…?” he asked carefully.

Gladio had already spoken too harshly twice that day, and he wasn’t keen on losing the favour of the one person that could advise him; one of the few people he had left.

With the door already opened again, the last blue light of the day, darkened early by clouds and downpour, set a cool tone in Cor’s eyes. The frown held through habit, not purpose, loosened slightly as he shook his head.

“No. You should rest, you’re going to need it.”

With no more than a gentle parting nod, Cor ducked out of the door. Gaze already back on the floor, Gladio heard the quiet scrape of wood over flagstone, then the metallic rattle of the handle being put back down.

Alone and left with little other choice, Gladio used what little light that crept in through the squint fittings to make sense of the cabin’s interior. Wood panelled walls, a dusty flagstone floor and next to no furniture other than the precarious cabinet, a wooden crate and soot-crusted fireplace, holding the bony embers of a fire that had long gone cold.

From that main room, there was a small hallway, only made visible by the scratches of dim light that slipped through the shutters at the end of it. Stationed on the two opposing walls of that narrow space were three doors.

He stepped into the small space and shut the door quietly behind him, attempt at discretion cut by the whine and rattle of a stiff wooden latch. Forced quieter than the rain by simple observance of the atmosphere, Gladio switched on his flashlight before he could potentially topple anything.

The majority of the room was taken up by a box bed, the side panels high enough to guard the edges of the mattress and tucked sheets. As he leant to the side and took another look, shadow revealed the intricacies. The end panel of the bed was carved with ploughed fields, wheat, sickles, trees and bonfires, even the familiar silhouette of what could only be Ravatogh decorated the wood. They were undeniably the symbols of Cleigne, forest and field. Braided ears of wheat led a steady, woven line from the foot of the bed to the headboard, where grapevines, flax blossoms and apples were worked into the wood, around the knots in carvings dulled and chipped by time. The rest of the room was empty, save for a small, three legged stool by the bed and a window with squint shutters, allowing more light than the others.

Gladio took a deep breath, then let it plume into the room. The scent of dust, of wood and petrichor and life long deserted by time, perfumed the room. He gently swung his arm forward and put the small canvas bundle on the end of the bed before leaning back against the thin, wooden wall and toeing off his shoes.

Soaked socks were pulled off as he tried to get some of the feeling frigid water had stolen back into his feet. He hissed a breath at the unforgiving cold of the flagstones under bare feet. After unclipping the flashlight and leaving it on the stool, his leather shirt was peeled away. Gladio sat on the edge of the bed and let his head rest in his hands. He tugged lightly at his hair, squeezing yet more water out until it dripped from his fingers. His gaze lingered on the glove for too long.

After a rousing breath used to clear his mind as much as fill his lungs, Gladio plucked the bundle from his side and turned in the bed to sit against the headboard. He untied the fine string of leather holding it together and let the canvas fall open in his lap, as quiet and gentle as a flower in bloom. The bounty given was small, but heavy. A dark rye roll no bigger than his palm, a few chunks of something that felt charred but smelled peppered, and fresh, inky plums.

With little better to do and sleep evading an exhausted body, as it often did in the recent weeks, Gladio downed half of the water, chewed his way through the roll and fought down the dry, cured items that revealed themselves to be meat, no matter how far removed from anything living they seemed. Hot with pepper and salty, they were quick to persuade him to finish the water. The plums, at least, offered some sweetness. Mild and soft in their peak season, they were a somewhat sour reminder of what these days should’ve been.

Things had changed.

Not so much full as weighed down by the dense meal, Gladio slipped further down into the rough linen sheets and pulled them up to his waist. He forced his focus onto the sound of the rain, tapping gently on the roof and dripping from trees onto stones as the continuous, shifting drone of it landing on the grass of the clearing provided enough white noise to fill the gaps in his mind. After a few moments of staring at the dust and cobwebs of the raftered ceiling, he reached aside and clicked his flashlight off.

Gladio shifted in the bed and simply let himself be heavy in it. He hissed sharply when something stabbed into his back. The unforgiving coldness of his own hand pulled his brows together as he retrieved the disturbance; a single blade of straw. The mattress was hardened by years of gravity, forcing the straw to smooth and settle under thick but threadbare sheets, but that single blade of straw gave him something to focus on as he played it in his hands, cracked the stiffness from it and wrapped it around his thumb like a ribbon.

He wasn’t sure how much more it could take. There could only be so much before the ground would give way and let the forest slip from the ridge, rip trees from their pews and muddy the rivers until it bled into the sea and told the world it the new absence. The landslide was imminent and petrifying, and it wasn’t just the mountain.

He shifted onto his side and took a deep, slow breath, held it,  then let his lungs empty again. On his repetition, the scents of the bed were drawn with it; the herby fragrance of straw, sheets that had staled from once being fresh, the watery scent of petrichor washing in from outside. The final note was one he often thought he could smell just before sleeping. It was the scent of comfort, of rest and the quiet reassurance of another’s presence.

It was honey. The drowsy nectar of meadows and wildflowers, of the finest temporal things preserved and made immortal in a perfume as golden as the dawn. It was hard fought, hard won and not freely given. Best, and perhaps worst of all, it was one he’d resolutely defined as hers.

With another deep, lingering breath of pseudo-scent, he realised something. Space. Although he had to bend his legs to fit onto the old bed, it was far too empty. The bedrolls of the tent were often messed and cluttered with bodies and sleeping bags within an hour, unless it had been days since they’d rested and they were too exhausted to move, even in sleep. A bed should’ve felt like a rare luxury. Without another body in it, it felt too empty. Without Ignis as rigid as a board, ever conscious of others even in his sleep, Noctis splayed out and murmuring in his dreams, or Prompto either tucked into a ball at Gladio’s side or clinging to his head, it felt something Gladio seldom put together, because it rarely happened; alone _and_ lonely.

Eyes shut, he dipped his hand into the armiger and felt little reassurance from the gentle shifting of the smoke waters around weapons that were, undoubtedly, in place and utterly still. Another subconscious encounter with the sweetness offered simply by breathing made him reach for the heavy, slumped pillow on the other side of the bed and drag it to his chest. After a few minutes, the simple sensation of warmth given coming back to him was enough to lull him, in combination with scent, to sleep and forget in a kinder consciousness.

Gladio woke on his back, the spare pillow splayed across his stomach and a heavy arm keeping it there. The first sense that roused him was scent, it always was. A few deep breaths helped narrow his location and brought clarity to the sleep-fogged mind; straw, dust, wood and the scent he always mistook for presence. Gladio cleared his throat and pried dark lashes apart to meet the raftered ceiling. Cobwebs danced like slow flames in the draught. He could feel it drifting in setting a cold hand over his chest as the room lay completely dark. The drone he’d almost resigned himself to hearing was still carrying on as rain soaked the mountainside and threatened to wash the earth right out from underneath tree roots.

The latch was turned quietly, but he still heard it. Gladio fought down the rising threat in his stomach, forced himself numb, and sat on the edge of the bed before the door was opened slightly and boots stepped in with barely a sound.

“That time already?” he asked, reaching for his shirt.

“...Holy shit...”

The breathed words had been little more than a whisper, but they sounded in Gladio like a bell tolling. Mouth twitching and lungs filling with lead, he was reaching in the dark for a rope he may have imagined hearing. The name left him shaking, even though he was certain.

“Rena?”

The hushed exclamation made all the difference in the world.

“Holy shit!”

Robbed of his breath, he stood and found the wall with his hand. Instinct brought them crashing together, each curved to the the other as incredulous laughs left them quietly. They knew each other by every sense, let alone blind. Strong arms around strong bodies. The contrasts made clear didn’t matter. Where he was bed-warm, soft and dry, she was sodden, made cold by the night’s rain and still armed.

Large warm hands, with more callouses than papercuts this time, cupped cold cheeks as he pressed his forehead against hers. His thumb ran the length her scar. The unstoppable smile was met by bound hands smoothing over his stubble and a nudge against his nose.

“Holy shit… You okay?” he checked, bordering on frantic as his brows drew together. The quick nod given as her fingers ran through his hair, and hoarse words spoken quietly, made his chest cave.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m fine. You?”

“Yeah!”

He beamed, the affirmation little more than a breath given shape. Pressed close and already forgetting the world, lips met in desperate victory and were soothed by their partners. Gladio wound a hand into her hair and felt the dripping curls through his fingers, enough to ground him and stop him from shaking.

In a pause for breath, a frown gathered against his own. She asked it gently, but that didn’t stop reality kicking the door down.

“What’re you doing here? Are the boys alright?”

“They’re okay, they’ll be okay.”

“Gladio.”

He forgotten how careful her curiosity was, and how his name could sound on a tongue with an edge that chose not to use it on him. With cold fingers combing through his hair and the sodden linen of her palm at his cheek, he had to steady himself when she asked again.

His smile fell with his chest. Eyes adjusted to what little light slipped through the shutters, the lines of contrast could be made out; dark features from cool skin. Her brows pinched at the quiet uncertainty that troubled his, before a bound hand pressed against his shoulder and gently pushed him to sit on the bed. Gladio reached aside and turned his flashlight on.

Unbound fingers combed his hair back as his head fell forwards. Gladio rested his forehead against her hip and simply felt the warmth hiding under rain-chilled skin. She shook her head and let thick, dark hair play between her fingertips.

“What happened?” Rena asked as one of his hands wound with her own. A soft, incredulous laugh brought her next words. “There’s no way you’re doing this on a fuckin’ whim.”

“I uh… Kinda…”

Her hands stopped as dark eyes finally adjusted to the stark brightness of the flashlight blinding her. Hiding underneath the ink were deep, black bruises over his ribs. It was as though too much watercolour had been allowed to seep into the parchment, ignoring the lines and borders put to define it. For the first time in weeks, she felt a pain that wasn’t her own, spreading warm across her shoulders.

“You got the shit beaten out of you.”

“I… Yeah… Yeah, I got the shit beaten outta me.”

The ragged sigh was far from disappointed as hands took up their soft play in his hair again.

The pale glow made soaked skin reveal her marks. The sun had brought back the dusting of freckles across her nose, and rain had made her hair dark as it weighed on the curls. Her eyes were in sockets stained by fatigue she’d never admit to. Rena was every hardness the wider world demanded; strength, endurance and no small amount of stubbornness, but that didn’t stop a soft gaze from making his drop from hers. Gladio fixed his eyes on the seam between wall and floor as he began to give his answer.

“I uh…”

Soft silence waited for an answer. By all means, he was far from where he should’ve been. To give him respite, Rena put herself through the dulling that came at the end of better days. The soaked flannel was pulled away and wrung out onto the floor below the window before being slung over the footboard. Boots were toed off, dry socks only just cast away once the straw of the mattress shifted behind him.

“So?”

“So… how much d’you know about Taelpar?” Gladio’s brows gathered as he stayed fixed on that line between horizontal and vertical. Her soft inhale came with the shifting of sheets.

“Enough. Remnant of the astral war,” she said quietly. Her tone took on a reverence, one practiced and written in words that were centuries old, if not millennia, as she spoke from the cosmogony. “The Draconian, in his right fury, ripped the belly of Eos open and tore out her son, Titan, to aid against the fires of Ifrit.”

Thought lost on the timelessness of her voice, as if it were infinite and eternal, he nodded gently before forcing himself to speak.

“Uh, yeah… Yeah. Well, in the canyon there’s this place called the Tempering Grounds. They found it about thirty years ago and… it’s basically a ruin. It’s more than ghosts, though.  There’s a trial and if you succeed, you...”

Rena had been sitting on the bed, watching him carefully. Breathing too regular to be natural, shoulders held that little bit closer together and with a stiffness setting into his lower, he was as tense as she’d ever seen him.

“How many people have done it?”

He fought the word free from his throat. Eyes shut, it took an entire lungful to force out that single, quiet word.

“One.”

Conscious of the tender bruising that painted his back in violent shades, she reached out and let her hand mould to his hip. After his back swelled and shrank with a deep breath, tanned fingers intertwined with her own.

“Gladio… are you sure about this?”

He nodded. The squeeze she gave his hand asked again.

“Yeah.”

_Have to be._

He chanced a look over his shoulder, and had to fight the tug in his chest. She looked so soft. Dark eyes focused on their hands and only ever straying to look at the bruises he could feel, warm and bloody across his ribs, while curls began to rise up from their gentle destruction.

He opened his mouth to speak. A smooth tone so quiet it was hoarse, and all the warmer for it, was first to speak.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea- it’s _not_ a good idea, but I can’t stop you.” Rena clenched her jaw and glanced up to meet his eyes. “You don’t need me to _approve_ or any of that shit, but just… fuck.”

He felt ashamed for turning away, and it manifested as a dull throb when he turned and sat against the headboard. Legs folded and hands playing their quiet games, she was just young, so was he, and yet the world had damned them anyway.

Rena distracted herself with the fighting of her own two hands, until tanned fingers made their quiet interruption. Hands a good inch longer than hers, they’d always been a perfect fit. Each bore the marks of their upbringings, of short childhoods in longer youths. Callouses, papercuts and scarred knuckles were all so rough, and yet so at home, on young skin. They were the signs of longer lives, forced onto the short.

She was careful with the words in her mouth and didn’t let them float freely. Nevertheless, it needed said.

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

He was silent. His hand went still against hers. After a quiet sneeze and clearing his throat gently, he squeezed.

“Hey.”

Deep green eyes flicked up to his. She found them dry, but soft. Warm. Gladio spoke with a soft certainty that held her focus as his own watered.

“You got the rest of them to Lestallum. Iris, she… When I told her you hadn’t called, she got pretty worked up. Kept sayin’ you’d gone all that way.”

Her gaze dropped from his. She could feel it searing across her shoulders again, wounds cauterized as soon as they were made. Not the worst she’d ever had, but not exactly pleasurable. She’d learned to be far more cautious of silent, red eyes.

“Rena…” he trailed gently, hand rising to cup her cheek. Both leant together as foreheads pressed. The whispered gratitude held the weight of his world. “Thank you.”

A small hum of acceptance echoed under warm skin. With one hand buried in her hair, and dark lashes parted to watch any clue she could give him, Gladio spoke.

“You still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

"Do  _you?_ "

Both paused at the sharp speed of her retort, as though she'd dropped something heavy and blunt on a table and glared at him over it. Green eyes were watching, and softened when his brows drew together, begging her to try. 

“I _know_ it’s not, but… You don’t need my approval- fuck, you don’t have it, but just… Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”

“I won’t. Cor’s gonna go with me, he’ll make sure of it.”

“Fuckin’ better, or I’m gonna have two asses to kick when you get back,” she said, in all sincerity.

A warm, quiet laugh left Gladio. It was a rare sound in changing days, but that made them all the more grateful for it. A deep inhale brought each others scents, her pine and petrichor strengthened around the honey while he smelled of rain-washed skin and leather, of warmth. With foreheads pressed and noses pushing gently against each other. Chapped lips brushed against each other before hers met his, open and soft to close in synchrony.

He may not have had her approval, but he had her blessing. They were forging a covenant, far more human and far more _real,_ just as binding as those earned from astrals.

Lost in soft nowhere, their movements were instinct. The hand bound to hers smoothed up her arm, raindrops gathered like dew from grass as they ran cold over his fingers. His other hand angled the back of her neck, pulled her closer as damp curls soaked him to the wrist. They parted for breath and left gentle oblivion to surface.

A smile quirked at his mouth as he nudged against her. “You’re all wet.”

“Yeah, well. Pissing rain’ll do that,” she breathed a laugh, giving her own rare smile.

He nudged at her as his hand coursed up, over her elbow and leaving the old violet scars behind. Smooth skin was interrupted where it hadn’t been before. Softer, thinner and fresh. Gladio pulled away slightly and peeked to the side, gently pulling her arm to show him.

“What the hell…” A deep frown gathered on his features as he leant to check the other. New scars as broad as this thumb and in streaks across her upper arms and shoulders. He peeked at her legs and found two more on the outer side of her thigh. “You got shot?!”

When brown eyes met her own, Rena weaved her head from side to side and spoke with a reluctance that sought to minimise impact.

“Little bit. They’re just grazes, they’re fine.”

Shaking his head at her calmness, he cupped her cheeks and locked eyes with her.

“You’re crazy.”

_Be careful._

“Eh, we all knew that,” she dismissed casually.

Gladio let out an incredulously breathed laugh and met her for another kiss, deep and sweet as summer evenings that lamented pomegranates and thunderstorms. Evenings such as those demanded heat, a close, heavy air that began to rise through the rain-cooled ether of the room. Lips took more as hands found their places, hidden in thick hair or cupping cheeks.

The swipe of his tongue across her lip was the question. A hungrier kiss gave her answer, and confirmed when she pressed the tip of her tongue at the point of his canine. He craved deeper passion and it was the only brutality she’d missed. Touches were sure and kisses far more important than breathing.

His hands were warm on cold skin that held an echo of heat. One stayed knotted in her hair while the other roamed along the curve of her side, slipped under the grey tank that had fallen up from her hips and gathered at her waist. Smooth skin, soft and scarred made him chase her for starved kisses.

Rena’s hand fisted around his hair with a hitched breath when he squeezed at her breast. Careful of the bruising that could only mean broken ribs, her fingertips trailed down over his hip and ran along the inside of his belt. Teeth trapping her bottom lip gave permission, request and plead.

As much as it ached to stop touching him, she pulled her hands away to work at his belt buckle, loosen it with the metallic clink that sounded so much like landing droplets; a far lighter sound that barely tapped on the depth of blood pooling in her gut. He lifted his hips a little and breathed a groan when the pressure of clothes on his cock was suddenly robbed, and instead replaced by air that made him throb for something warm and soft, something closer.

The warm hand that wrapped around him made him hiss as she worked out the first drop of sweet, silken precum. Momentarily distracted by the practiced touch working him as lips soaked him in absence, his hands had fallen still.

He needed more.

Gladio smoothed his palm down her side, following the softness that clung to hard muscle until his hand found the space between her legs. Even through the cotton of her underwear, heat lingered in soft swathes, like mist above water. It was the invitation; the promise of relief and close binding of one to the other.

She flinched when his fingers pushed under the fabric. Gladio paused and pulled back, searching green eyes for their hesitations. The bold certainty and edge he’d missed was one that made him sure again.

Through unspoken agreement, they ripped themselves from each other and fought clothes for bareness, for skin and contact; as much synchrony as they could get. Gladio had stepped from the bed, out of both trousers and boxers by the time she’d cast her underwear away.

He knelt on the bed and reached out, hands taking hips and pulling her flush to him. Rena’s mouth fell open softly as messy, deep kisses were pressed to her neck and the warmth of him guarded her back, breaths falling into tandem. Strong hands took different directions; one between her legs to pull them apart, while the other smoothed up under the tank top. His own legs between hers and hands moving in dizzying combination as both swept up to squeeze and grip tender flesh, claiming it as his own with bruising force. The motion of his hands pushed the tank up until he’d had enough of fabric, material separations and pulled it off over her head.

Bared and pressed close, this was nothing if not reintroduction; the reaffirmation of the bond. Each touch set sparks in their skin and struck it all over again; loyalty, trust, and no small amount of acceptance, amongst a hundred other things. Infinite intimacies were the stardust that poured, laced veins and settled heavy as drowsy desire in their guts.

The soft warmth that seemed just out of his reach made his cock twitch. Head turned to catch him in a rapturous kiss, Rena slipped her hand down as his own gathered at her hip and jaw. She guided him until he was pressed flush to her. The kiss fell away in craving, rasped breaths as other parts met, heated and slick.

The weight of him pressed forwards, hands clutching at the soft scars bared to him and keeping her close. In that temple of limbs and musk, Rena was easily dizzied by the kiss given to bruise her, over the pulse as though to stain every last drop of her. The hot, slicked drag of him against her sex was enough to coax her down from hands and knees until she was braced on her forearms.

The absence when his hips drew back from hers was sickening.

The push was one that made her mouth fall open. Hard, thick and powerful, it made her bottom lip quiver. His breath shuddered, setting ripples in the pond as it flooded against her neck. The quiet groan he muffled into her hair came with the first force of the head of him until a semblance of a pause was taken. Laced with desperate ecstasy and the need for more, _closer,_ he pushed. Gladio was only halfway, brows pinched by the excruciating pleasure of her struggling to tighten around him, when her head fell forwards onto the mattress and drowned a quiet cry in the sheets and straw. The miniscule ghost of a squeak she let out at the sheer presence of him again was one that made him apologise in open-mouthed kisses that fell across her shoulders like raindrops.

She’d barely stopped shaking when he couldn’t take it anymore. He needed her closer, to feel her breath with him, as though binding closely would stop them being torn apart for good. One strong arm grappled her waist, while the other reached up to sweep her hair and guide her neck, just as she leant to catch him in a kiss again. He took the fire she gave him and turned it into hunger, the need to make signals from smoke as he pressed close over her back.

The pull of him drawing out made Rena whine into his mouth. It was a lost and small sound, one that was given a full-bloodied echo when his returning thrust made her moan. Gladio stayed flush over her back as he picked his rhythm and lost himself to the ecstasy of being bound again. Her mouth fell away to muffle a keen into the sheets.

Each and every push drew them closer. The desperation in his hands, the press of his body over hers and each shaken groan was translated into sounds she had to silence for discretions sake. The sheer pleasure, blinding and bloodied, made her fight to arch against him. Gladio kept an arm hooked around her waist as he dragged open lips and stubble across her shoulders and neck. Hips rolling against each other, he grappled her close as slow ecstasy began to fray his mind and dash charcoal over clean pages.

_You’re going to die._

Gladio shook the thought from his head with a ragged breath and worked a bruise into the juncture between shoulder and neck. He lost himself again in the binding scent of sex, that final strand that weaved with his, hers and theirs.

_You are. You’re going to die._

He screwed his eyes shut to focus on the dig of claws in his gut, on the dark creature that hungered and hunted. Chapped lips dragged across her skin as he lowered himself away from thought and tried to strike a balance between controlling his mind and falling into oblivion.

The slick wetness spreading across his thighs and hips, pushed further by every roll of his hips and the writhing she couldn’t stop. Blood dripped lower and gathered heavy in the pit of his stomach, churning as it heated and set his mind in a luscious red mist.

_You’re going to die._

The thought was a shard of ice stabbed through his hand. The sharp sting of it made him hold closer, and melt the thought away against her skin. Pressed as close as he could, he could feel whenever she choked on her breath or let it out as a long, steady lungful to keep herself quiet.

_You are. You’re not even going to look her in the eye._

A bitter growl to banish the thought sweetened into a groan of honeyed sin came with a slam of his hips. The tiny, high sound she hid in rough sheets tugged at his chest and brought him back, enough for apologetic kisses to be given desperate and sincere against her neck and cheek between the ragged breaths required by growing heat.

Caged by strong limbs and scrabbling to hold her mind, Rena gritted her teeth to keep anything more than a whine or soft gasp from escaping. The solid warmth of him pressed against her back, defining her limits with his own as he tried to bury himself in her reduced thought to little more than a tangle of threads. Steadied by his hand as much as her own, she freed one fist from the sheets and reached back to comb through his hair.

The blurring ravel of bodies made him moan, low and gravelly in her ear. The sound alone made her tighten and grab a fistful of his hair to pull him down and hush him against her shoulder while a high keen burned like whiskey in her throat.

One arm hooked around her waist while the other planted in the bed underneath hers, fingers meshed, Gladio was lost in huffed breaths and thrusts that made them both shake. He was on fire, blackened by the flames as the violent bruises and exhausted muscles strained, coaxed on by the promise of relief and just how sweet it felt, lining his veins as it salved every last ache except one.

_You’re going to-._

Teeth gritted and patience lost with the snagging thoughts in his own head, he fixed his hands on her hips and drew out in one swift motion. Aching and excruciatingly empty, the quiet, hollow sound Rena made was whipped and distorted when the hands on her hips pushed her onto her side, then her back. Dizzied by motion and circumstance, legs parted out of instinct. Gladio swept back down and swiftly seated himself in her, a desperate enough motion to slam hips with a hard thud and push her up the bed.

The cry she would’ve let out was choked in her throat as her nails put crescents in his shoulders. He’d let her carve a thousand moons into him if he could keep her.

Gladio was bearing down on her, hips flush as he buried himself and drowned in scent and skin, in hands pulling at his hair and lips parted against his neck.

The scratch of his stubble was electric; a lighter sensation from the bloody, insistent push of his hips. He was a storm wreathed in flesh, and desperate carnal desire, in need. Gladio _needed_ to be closer, to be so tightly bound nothing in existence could tear him away from her. The legs wrapped around his back and hands lost in his hair were roots, holding the mountain together as the landslide threatened to fall and flood the smooth, writhing body, strong as a river underneath him.

The breath he poured over her neck shook too much. When the inhale was a trembled pull of air into his lungs, her brows gathered in a different frown from that granted by pleasure. Rena cupped his cheeks and pushed him from the crook of her neck until she could see him.

Thick brows were knitted together over dark eyes that refused to meet hers as breaths taken too quickly to shake passed between open, kiss-swollen lips. He stilled. Reluctant and ashamed, his gaze only met hers after she smoothed over his cheek and ran her fingers through his hair.

Eyes as soft and dark as rain soaked earth squeezed until thick lashes closed them and cut loose a weight.

The tear landed hot and leaden on her cheek. Vision blurred, he saw it slide across her skin and run to hide in her hair. Everything told him to follow it, but deep green eyes and steady hands kept him still. Gladio tore his eyes away again, focused on the pearl of her necklace as he fought the ghostly hand around his throat, though half of him willed it to strangle him for his weakness.

“Hey…”

The word was given hoarse and soft, a gentle summon. The tear had cut her with its salt and set cold claws in her chest. It made her shake and forced her careful. It terrified her.

Gladio swallowed thickly and met her eyes again. There was something broken in the earthen brown, all the fire swallowed by saltwater that left him bare and raw. Hands cradling his face, she met him with a sincere frown and words so certain they transcended simply being hers; they were theirs.

“You’re mine, you hear me? You’re mine, and I’m yours.”

He forgot to breathe for a moment as his chest caved. Each word hauled that twisted, slicing creature from him in an effort to let him breathe again. Pulled down into a deep kiss in a desperate attempt to help him escape, to let him be nowhere, Gladio pressed his forehead to hers when they parted. His pulse sounded in his ears, frantic and hard.

Rena lulled him back into absence with gently rolling hips as she squeezed around him, no more than instinct and chasing sensation. “It’s you and me, remember?”

“You and me,” he swore, lips brushing hers to carve the words into the pair of them. His hips took up a deep, driving rhythm, slow and heady as he pushed into her. Her mouth fell open with the hint of a whine. Gladio drowned a moan in her kiss.

“Everything I am…” she nodded, making oaths out of instinct and something she couldn’t quite name as his movements stole her breath in pauses. “Everything I will be… It’s yours… It’s all yours…”

Brows gathered as another tear passed from his lashes to hers, Gladio wrapped around her and buried himself, heat rising in his belly. The sounds given through kisses to keep the covenant secret and sacred were prayers and the blessings returned. Limbs twined and desperate for that final release, they chased it down, _hunted it,_ as they had countless times before.

This felt final, as though the blood spilled would be the last. They were hellbent and nothing would stop them from that hallowed taste of death.

_Tell her._

Gladio’s mouth held open against hers, final prayer sweet and bloody on his tongue. His breath was stolen away as she arched underneath him, body held flush to his by limbs that grappled each other and bound them in flesh and soul. She muffled a craving moan against his neck. Her voice had taken up its hoarseness, the high strain of need.

_Tell her._

Desperate nudges bound them in a kiss again as he readied his pledge, the sword he’d swear to her and the blood he would draw from his own hand, simply to have hers. It was right there, as tensed and ready to strike as his release.

Her name could only ever leave him in praise and revelry.

Soft curses were petals from heaven, stirred up by a breeze until they stroked at his cheeks and cast him in bound synchrony as the world fell away around them. It was thrown from their skin and pushed away by heat and oblivion as she faded like a star held in gaze, only to burst back brighter, shining and cosmic as she said his name in rapture.

The sense of that alone threw him over and dragged him amongst stars, burning and infinite as he buried deep and came with a shuddered groan. The hoarse whines that left him with every tug of searing release were echoed by hers. Both twitching as they bound, lips crashed against each other in instinctive accord. Bond reinforced in the maelstrom, they rocked and slowed until exhaustion took over and minds full of muddied water stilled enough to make the world clear again, in its every harsh detail.

Panting and coated in sweat, Gladio fell against her. He was warm and heavy in the bloody glow as they caught their breath. Hearts hammering to each other through heaving chests, she caught him in another deep, full kiss. Bound by that, he rolled onto his side and took her with him. As sensation replaced the blissful numbness between their legs, the slip of his own release made his brows gather and jaw clench.

It all came flooding back too fast. He’d leave all the wrong things behind, back her into a corner and leave the rest of them exposed. A small, selfish part of himself that he damned, though it was no more than human nature and survival, willed it to take and to give her more in the wake of his death than he ever had in life; a final gift.

In a changing world, gifts and curses were easily interchanged.

The hands that knew him best ran through his hair and held him close. The soft kisses given to his face were dappled sunlight, and enough to make him feel forgiven.

Wanting nothing more than the close absence given by intimacy and sleep, Gladio kissed her forehead before leaning back to reach for the flashlight. Something tugged at him. Brows gathered and utterly spent by desperate intensity, he turned to look.

The dark beads of his necklace had tangled with silvered wheat until the cross and pearl had caught. The sight of it softened him, but there was more. Beyond lay flushed skin, messy curls and eyes that begged him back.

Gladio switched the light off and curled close to hold and be held in a tangle of limbs that dared the rest of the world to try and tear them away. He wound their fingers together and drew the back of her hand to his lips. Rena returned the gesture to his before the knotted connection was allowed to rest between them, cradled by larger bodies that defied that small tenderness. With their other arms hooked about each other, the steady breaths and deafening quiet of hearts allowed to talk while words failed their bearers was enough to lull them to sleep.

Warmth, scent and the undeniably close press of another body to his own were the first things to meet him when he woke. The softness of her hair in his hand and the slow serenity of her breathing in sleep made sure he knew it was her before his mind returned to him. Without his senses, he would’ve known anyway.

He opened his eyes before realisation set in and dug its claws into his gut. He knew where he was headed, and the night had been a reminder of what he was leaving behind. It had been his last chance at vulnerability, at fear and pain, _at being human._

There would be none of that in the trials. Only battle, or death.

The bed held him down. In the pale blue glow that came predawn, and filled the room with thrumming anticipation, as though the day were a bird fluffing its breast to sing.

Gladio could already hear the birds as they summoned the sun, and another day. They sang with a joyful courage, one for lighter hearts. The honeyed scent of her hair was drawn in the tide of his breathing, and her lips were so warm against his neck it made his chest sink. Still slung about each other, he was as close to heaven as he’d ever been, both with her and in what he was about to do.

He knew to leave before she woke. The day they’d left the city was one that had stayed with him for all the wrong reasons. It had been the last time he’d seen those streets, halls, his father, and the day he’d seen her run and hide in the woods as he backed away. Gladio wasn’t sure he could see her watch him leave again.

With one lasting kiss to her temple, he let himself be close before slipping away as carefully as he could. Gladio briefly cleaned himself with a fold of the sheets before he dressed. He was standing by the door far before he was ready. The wooden latch was cool and hard in his hand as he pulled it and set his foot outside the room. Then he made his mistake.

He looked.

It made him ache; for bed, for warmth, for _her_ , always her. The echo of the first time they’d taken to bed was before him, more scarred than before, and far more desperate, but just as soft. Sprawled tall and strong over rough, cream sheets, the mess of wild curls were the words of a letter, written in a hand he’d learned to read. His chest caved with a soft frown when a pale hand began to search the sheets only to find warm absence.

_You should’ve told her._

Something rose in Gladio. It was stubborn and strong, quiet but determined. It would make him a thing of necessity. It was survival, and something he’d been taught. Not in a training room, not in a ring. It had been taught in the woods, in the kitchen, the bed, the plains, in every moment shared. It was what made her brutal and had kept her alive long enough to find them and strike a bond. It was hers, and it made his jaw set, shoulders broad and frown focused.

_One more reason to come back._

* * *

There was an ambience to emptiness; one that cried _come and be lost_. It was depth and deception, the land of no horizon. The forest held a thick atmosphere and it was air she could simply _breathe_.

These were her elements.

Soft fur, hardened by a two months of weather and the old life, passed her fingertips as they searched. The dogs patrolled twenty feet away from her. They stopped and turned over their shoulders every few moments, just to check she was there, before putting their heads to the ground and sweeping for scent. Noses down, eyes busy and ears catching on every minute sound in the symphony, the hunt was on.

The ground was still damp, held in a world of shallow fog under the ferns, one that kept the wounds of rain fresh. Seyna’s dark pelt blended in, as though the earth beneath her feet had taken form and chosen to work with her. As riddled with roots and stones as it was needles and new growth, Rena never tripped on uneven ground; it forced her to pay attention and gave no false sense of security. The forest may have been secretive, but it was honest with what it did reveal.

She could stand tall here. The sky couldn’t press down. Trees were held like polearms, the staffs of guardians as they witnessed time pass and seasons change. Rena existed in the realm between the two; somewhere in a stilted world of trees as they meshed with glimpses of sky, with the ground changing beneath her feet and the hand of a breeze sweeping over her hair and playing with the curls. It was as familiar and instinctive as her own skin, only far more intricate.

Eyes, as deep and green as the procession of conifers that held this mountainside together, swept across the ground and searched for tracks. The ground was soft enough to take prints, but something as simple as a disturbance in the dusting of pine needles would be enough to offer clue.

Six had crossed her path already that day. One set was her own tracks from days before, when she’d made the same patrol and established precisely how far she was from anything else. The answer had been simple; far enough.

The others varied, from the smaller creatures that called burrows home, but were too small to take at this time of the year, to larger and yet more delicate beasts that made their lithe impact. While she was capable of tracking and killing one, the chances of her eating it before it went off were low, so they had been left to their own tendings.

A breeze ran its fingers through the woods. It drew sound from the trees like a bow over strings and silenced its quiet orchestra as soon as it had been roused. The wind, however, also brought something that Rena couldn’t detect.

Seyna went still, lifted her head and sniffed.

The change was instant. From the leisurely pace and patience it took to find the right scent, and one strong enough to be fresh, she immediately started to shift on her feet, whined once at Rena before being given a minimal flick of the hand; permission to pursue.

The darker dog barrelled off through the bracken, quick and quiet. Ochre lifted his head and loped after her, dark muzzle lifted to catch the same scent. He came back to Rena as she followed, continually acting as the cord tying between the two of them. In a world where the horizon was fifty feet away, at most, less experienced groups would often drift too far from each other. That had always been the advantage of two dogs; one could track the other down, if need be.

The trees thinned a little and exposed a vista. Mountains, still thick in their summer grandeur, stood proud and silent in the distance, as though standing on a foreground of treetops. She knew that ridge. When winter cast it in platinum and ghostly pearl, silencing it with thick snow, it was an abstract of a sleeping woman, curled up in white sheets as the cold months passed.

Far closer was the pale grey stone of an edge, and the trees that leant out over the edge, supported by little more than their own boldness. The pale, dove grey of clouds softened the world, and seemed to bid them quiet. As they drew nearer the cliff, Rena pushed her hand against a tree to steady herself and was tugged down into a crouch by instinct and set the rifle on the ground at her side. It was a push at the back of her neck, the handling of some ghost that could always sense more than her. As she leant forwards, the scene below was revealed.

Dark, solid and so linear in their movements it was hard to read, three of them were still standing. The other five had been dashed by the landing, and lay strewn about as piles of sparking wire and crumpled limbs.

Seyna’s hackles rose in her peripheral. Rena reached out and brushed her hand against the solid shoulder of the dog before smoothing her down, only for the thick fur to rise again as her muzzle twitched to bare her teeth.

Heat washed over her before sound gave confirmation. Treetops swayed under the new engine. It hovered in from the right before opening its metal jaws and setting its cargo loose.

Weighing consequence against gain, and potential against reality was an equation so instinctive, Rena could do it subconsciously. Years of necessity had forced her to learn, and the forest was an excellent teacher. It lacked gentleness, had force in bounds and endless lessons hidden in its depths, but it taught none of them. They simply had to be learned, and few mistakes went unpunished. The forest may have been the teacher, but time and experience were useful classmates.

By the time a dozen more metal boots had landed on the ground, her decision was made. Rena gave Seyna’s scruff a squeeze before she picked up the rifle and backed away. 

Returned to her full height, she slung the rifle over her shoulder again and led the dogs away before sending them to sweep again. As they formed wide loops, stirring scent from the ground, Rena felt her ears pull at any sound loud or close enough to be detected. The forest was so full of scent, she could barely discern between them. All she knew was a perfume of petrichor and pine, something she was so accustomed to that she could barely smell it at all. To her, it was just clean, soft air, as fresh as cold water.

Ochre was first to call, always far more vocal than his sister. The quiet bark pulled Rena’s gaze from the forest floor and to the light, mottled coat of the dog that stood out so starkly. He’d always been better for hiding in fields and by riverbanks, ready to flush out their quarry. But now, he danced on his feet and turned in tight circles on the spot, chattering to keep her attention and gain approval.

One wave of her hand and he shot through the undergrowth. Rena shook her head at the ever-eager dog and picked up her pace to follow after. Once Seyna had caught the scent, the two of them worked together; one tracking it further ahead whilst the other looped back to lead Rena in the right direction.

They led across the side of the slope until bare stone cut from the ground. She could hear the culprit. Water. A simple stream had pared soil from rock like flesh from bone,but it was nowhere to be seen. With his nose close to the ground strewn with pine needles, Ochre led down a narrow path that slowly descended towards the bulk of the mountain, until the wall of sheer rock towered at her right, a dark pewter and slick with spray.

As they closed in, the path narrowed until the dogs took single file and Rena had to turn sideways and edge along the precipice. With nothing but stone for twenty feet above and thirty feet below, past a stream white with current as rapids shredded it, it made her smirk and shake her head.

The track broadened again and the dogs led on, side by side. The stream ran at the side, close enough for them to take a drink, while they followed the new incline that led up towards the billowing white silk of a fast, sharp waterfall. When they reached a small boulder, bordered by more ferns and covered in the thick moss that held dew as jewels, both dogs pushed themselves to the ground and lay down. Instinct pulled and she followed suit, lowered into a crouch.

Rena peeked ahead at the space that housed the waterfall. No more than six feet wide, at most, the tall, cylindrical chamber opened up to the pale sky and let it fall in the same clear, cold shade as the water. A small pool waved gently at the bottom, and held Ochre’s find. Speckled, bobbing in the water as they chattered amongst themselves in a quiet chorus of creaking words. Quacks.

She loosened the rifle from her shoulder and pulled the bolt, the sound covered by the torrent. Rena leant down to her side and ruffled between Ochre’s ears. Russet eyes glanced up at her as his tail brushed the pine needles from the thin soil.

“Good boy,” she murmured her praises, before sneaking forwards and loading the gun.

Halfway back up the mountain, with the promise of a full stomach hanging from her hand, the dogs trotted with their noses low and tail looped over their backs, wagging gently, though they sped up whenever fingers passed through their coats.

The stomach she’d forced silent through a familiar sequence of trials; the emptiness, the sonorous protests, to clawing hunger and finally reluctant, quiet silence, was beginning to wake up again. Evening hunts were too dangerous; daemons were becoming more common at night. They haunted and screeched through the dark, spooking most of what could be caught in the early hours of the morning away. Daytime hunts were unfortunate, necessary and rarely successful, even for someone as practiced as her.

Sunshine, light and golden as the feathers on ears of wheat, filtered through the trees and poured in shafts that fell down the mountain, as though vast swathes of aurous silk, so fine it was translucent, had been thrown. Calmed by the prospect of a full stomach, though panic had never been part of the equation, Rena allowed herself something she seldom did.

Fun.

As the slope led up, and she followed the wooded side, free of tracks, back to the cabin, a fallen tree lay quiet and still against the ground. It was a toying fancy, playful and harmless, one she almost brushed away. She still shook her head at herself when she hopped up onto the bark, spread her arms for balance and walked along the tree. Easily a hundred feet tall, it was a bridge that led her up the slope. Ochre and Seyna darted alongside, still on the ground, as the angle of the hill forced the trunk a good twenty feet from the ground before joining up with the ground again. At the top, where the wood grew thin and flexible, Rena dropped off to one side and carried on, over moss and roots, for the final, short walk to the clearing at the top.

Instinct held her back by the scruff of her neck. Gentle and cautious, it made her linger in the trees and search the clearing before she and the dogs stepped forwards. After the dogs swept the space, rustling through tall grass, they returned relaxed and eager, noses busy at the brace of ducks hanging from her fingers. Rena did what she had done for the past three days; set about in quiet, familiar work.

She left the ducks hanging from a small hook on the outside of the cabin and stepped inside. The door didn’t drag across the flagstone; she’d fixed it. She retrieved the cast iron pot she’d found and cleaned from the cabinet, which could now be trusted to hold heavier items; she’d fixed that too. In three days, she’d straightened shutters, fixed countless small nuances and taken years from the cabin. Every window had been opened and for the first time in decades, the building had been allowed to breathe. Dust had been swept out, broken things repaired and she’d even been so bored as to bring water up from the river and boiled the sheets before hanging them between trees to dry. Domesticity had never been something she’d chosen; Rena had done it out of necessity and nesting had never come naturally. Boredom was a powerful motivator.

When she stepped back out, the clearing wore the first magic she’d ever known. It preceded blue ashes and bursting weapons. A smaller, altogether more useless thing, and yet it was a treasure. The dust and insect floating on a gentle breeze she could barely feel were set on fire by the evening sunlight until they shone like gold under the clear waters of a shallow creek. It was harmless and minimal, but held quiet wonder.

Rena bound six logs together to form a single cylinder, loosely stuffed feathered lichens in the gaps and nursed a spark struck from her knife and flint until it grew and burned. While it set heat through the thick metal of the pot, she bled and plucked the ducks before paring the shot meat away. The better morsels were carved from bone and cast into the pan where they sizzled and browned, frying in their own fat.

A heavy feeling settled in her stomach when she pulled a clump of soaked moss from the ground the wiped the blood from hands. She’d never minded blood. It was a simple necessity; everything bled. It had never made her blanche, or scream. Nothing had ever made her faint. Blood was the mark of life, and the ink that wrote _mortality._

Her leg had bled when she’d slipped and scraped it on a shale slide when she was four. Her knuckles had first split at nine, and she’d spent the winter gloved in frozen blood. She’d woken up to soaked straw and stone when she was eleven, and a pain in the pit of her belly no one had warned her about. It had taken days, but it had stopped. She’d long become resigned to the rhythms of her own organs. When she was fourteen, and a hunt had gone about as badly as it could’ve, she’d never seen that much blood. The scar on her leg was tough and hard, but necessary.

There was nothing wrong with blood; it was little more than a signal. Rena didn’t mind it, but his was an entirely different matter.

She tried to distract herself by reaching into her rucksack and pulling out the rare gifts she’d managed to forage and find. Wild onions, small but pungent, were the first to be peeled, quartered and thrown into the pot. It was still early in the season, so the carrots she’d found were undersized, but sweet. A few potatoes, some woody herbs and finally, the saving grace; plums. Sweet and tart, she halved them, carved out the pits and placed them skin up in the pan until they lost their juices and thickened to form a dark syrup with the duck fat. She cut the rest of the vegetable against her thumb, stripped the herbs from their stalks and covered it all with water. It would easily feed far more than one.

Cor had said to wait five days and if they hadn’t come back, she was to bring supplies and find them. Whether she came across two men, or two bodies, would depend on circumstance.

Today was day four and Taelpar was a day’s trek, uninterrupted.

Grinding her teeth, she put the lit on the pot and let it stew. While it did, the dogs sat up from their place at her sides and quickly chomped down carrots thrown their way, whining for the deeper meats of duck. The carcasses were picked clean by the time she’d finished feeding the dogs.

She busied herself again, too restless to sit for long, though she’d never admit it. Logs were chopped to replace those taken from the dry store in the cabin. She fetched more water from a nearby stream and set it beside the pot, on the flaming stack, to boil.

Rena had stopped for a moment too long when Ochre nudged at her hands, muzzle velvet and warm between her palms. He huffed and stayed still for a moment, only wagging his tail slowly, before batting at her boot for a game. A quiet smile spread as she shoved at his shoulder in play, only for him to push back and fall into an inviting bow. Crouched low, she pushed at him again. Seyna joined in, shoving at her brother as the two of them teamed up against him, and before long the three were in a game of tag, with pine cones thrown as distraction while they played in the clearing.

The sun sank lower as the game continued, enough to lace the sides of the dark green cabin in gold and make it murky but bright. Warm in the evening of high summer, Rena let herself down on the long grass and played it between her fingers as the dogs chased each other. With a huffed laugh, grateful for distraction, she was almost shoved onto her side when Ochre barrelled into her. He lay on his back, between her legs, and wiggled around as Seyna played threat. When the darker dog curled up at Rena’s side, Ochre simply looked up at his owner, the top of his head pressed to her stomach, before sticking his tongue out in a feeble attempt to lick her face. The hands that rubbed his ears in circles slowed him down and let him relax in familiar company.

Seyna’s ear lifted. Rena barely noticed it at first, too busy watching her hand disappear into the thick patch of white fur on Ochre’s chest. The sudden sprint she took to the other side of the cabin gathered her attention. A soft frown gathered on Rena’s face. When Ochre looked up, then darted after his sister, a weight dropped in her gut. It made her pulse hard when both dogs started barking.

She’d left fifteen functioning magitek on this mountain, and the trail would lead them right to the cabin.

Rena quickly scanned the edge of the woods, searching for red eyes in an already fiery sunset. She stood, made for the edge of the cabin and reached for the rifle as it rested against the building.

The dogs stopped barking. It made everything stop.

“There’s my girl,” was said with a smile. A quiet groan was held behind gritted teeth as a dog panted. “Hey buddy, how you doing?”

Rena stepped around the corner of the cabin.

Coated in sweat and blood, with dark circles around his eyes and a heaviness to his breathing, Gladio was smiling at the dogs as Cor stood a few feet to the side.

When Ochre darted back to her and nosed at her hands, tail a blur, amber eyes as rich and soft as the sunset locked on her. He held that expression she didn’t understand again, and closed his mouth in satisfied resolve. There was something else to him, something she couldn’t place. It was steady and proud with good reason, and as humble as the earth.

The broad cut across his chest was still bloody, but dried. As was the slice across his forehead.

“Those are new,” she nodded, making a point to look at the wounds that would form fine scars. The corner of his mouth pulled at a smile.

“Yeah… I uh… I did something stupid. _Again,”_ he admitted, cocking his head. Gladio raised his brows and continued. “Had to do it to find that out, though.”

She shrugged lightly as her arms crossed in loose drapery and simply said, “Then it wasn’t stupid.”

The beam that spread across his face was worth more to her than a lifetime of quiet, peaceful solitude in the woods. It made her own warm smile appear and play.

Tired limbs, pushed to the bring, found the energy in that smile to walk and stand close to her. Rough hands, one gloved and the other bare, cupped her cheeks.

“He’s watching,” she argued gently, with no real intention.

Gladio leant down and shook his head while he spoke, deep and soft as his soul. “I don’t give a shit…”

The warm beats of laughter exchanged were so rare a sound in changing days, that silencing them with something as captivating and eternal as a kiss that let them breathe each other in. Her fingers tangled in his hair as counterpart hands found each other and bound, squeezing back and forth. They only broke apart in grins when the low chuckle of the Marshal finished with a sigh that could only mean he was shaking his head.

* * *

_“Ah-ahh!”_

Rena deadpanned at his trailing whine. The expression broke into a soft focus as she continued to clean the edges of the wound on his chest. He cleared his throat and pushed the mild pain from his face.

“Sorry.”

“Mhm,” she raised an eyebrow. Steady hands dabbed at the wound as salt water stung at the exposed flesh. When Rena sat back and gave the length of the cut a once over, she shook her head and met his eyes. “You’re batshit, by the way.”

“Meh,” he shrugged.

Heavy-shouldered and full-stomached, Gladio was propped up against the headboard as she worked her way through the marks of the trial. His forehead had been easy enough; a simple clean and leaving the wound to fix itself was enough. The gouge through his chest was deeper. Not the worst he’d ever had, but considerable. That scar wasn’t going to go anywhere fast. Potions had done enough to stem the bleeding, but the wounds still needed cleaned and dressed.

Every now and then he wiggled his feet under the covers, if only to play with Seyna, who had her head firmly planted over his ankle while she dozed. Ochre had curled up at Rena’s side, nothing but a swirl of mottled fur and a head resting by her thigh. They looked well. A month back in the wild, working as they should, had afforded them the same benefits as their owner. Their scent was stronger, her own honey, pine and petrichor reinforced as the heady perfume of warm straw clung to the dogs. Eyes were brighter, bodies worked harder and rest deeper than before. The three of them were where they belonged.

Experienced hands shook far less than they had the first time. As she held his skin steady with one hand and wiped away dried blood and grit with the other, a few stray curls fell into her eyes. Two puffs were unsuccessful in keeping them away. Gladio tucked them away and let his finger stroke along her jaw as she worked.

Dark green eyes made him fight a smile.

“What?”

“Little busy here.”

“Ah, c’mon. They’re pretty much fixed.” He tilted his head. Amber hues held a warm sparkle in large pupils. The lantern on the bedside table set him in the warm tones summer had deepened as the soft flame danced in his eyes.

“Yeah? And I wouldn’t have to be fixing them if you hadn’t fucking gotten them. You’re just… Gods, I don’t even know. Do you have any sense of self-preservation at all? The little voice that tells you something’s a bad idea?” She chastised him, but gently. The low voice kept quiet though not hushed was enough to keep earthen eyes soft.

“Course I do,” he said, brows pinched over a warm smile.

“Start listening to it. Please. I mean c’mon, how the fuck did he get your nipple?”

“He what?” Gladio frowned and widened his eyes before looking down at himself. Both nipples were intact. She pinched one and met his open-mouthed frown.

Gladio moved to brush her hand away. Rena was quicker, but he still caught her wrist. Tanned fingers, warm at the joints and scuffed knuckles she’d cleaned earlier, intertwined with hers. He brought closer and pressed a light kiss before letting his stubble scratch against the back of her hand.

“See? You wouldn’t have noticed. Fuckin’… unbelievable…” she trailed off, shaking her head as she went back to cleaning the wound.

As a soft quiet fell on the pair, innate companionship and familiar presence was witnessed. Gentle eyes flicked up at his every hiss of pain or even the twitch of his face to a grimace or gritted teeth. Silent apologies were written in dark green and lined by lashes. For all her rough words and hard apathy, there was a stealthier thought that loomed in the back of her head.

_He needs to go back._

“My dad never did it.”

Having lost herself to quiet thought, she slowed her hands and glanced up at him. His expression was muted and all the more telling for it. Thick brows had gathered slightly as his mouth held open and ready to speak. There was something in his words; even though he’d never said it, Gladio was struggling. He’d already lost one parent. Losing the second was just as heartbreaking.

Clarus hadn’t just been his father. He’d been a mentor, teacher, idol. Each Amicitia, more than any other family, followed in the footsteps of the last and marched into history. They grew into those tracks, and Gladio was still learning. Having body and soul bound to another until they joined in death was a harsh lesson to learn when individuals were born just that; individual. There was little else for it; Gladio was bound to Noctis until they died, through duty and love.

Clarus had taught him just that; it was more than duty. Always more than duty. More than simple diligence was required to willingly lay down one’s life for someone else, time after time. Over the years, the bond had transcended until they were as much a part of themselves as each other. Where one went, the other followed.

“He never…” Gladio let his voice fail him and his eyes drop from hers. Rena’s hand found his and twined gentle until he squeezed back.  He drew a shaking breath and avoided her gaze as much as possible.

“Hey…” she whispered, thumb stroking the side of his knuckle as he sniffed and measured his breaths. “It’s alright.”

The earthen eyes welling with tears told her that he didn’t think so.

“Or it’s gonna be. We’ll just wait and see. It’s not forever, alright?”

That had been a wound untended and invisible. He’d hidden it. The papers had given news of the Regis’ death, and not one mention of his father. It was simply assumed. No king fell unless their shield fell first. It had always been that way. Tradition is both a shackle and a lifeline.

He sniffed again and cleared his throat to banish the tightness. “Alright.”

Rena went back to cleaning that last wound. As the time passed, each valuable second with each other slipping through their fingers, his breathing steadied. At one point, she thought him asleep, only to let her gaze flicker up.

He had that look on his face again. The one she didn’t understand. She’d tried to figure it out at first, only to leave it and simply accept it was an expression she couldn’t read. It held enchantment, as though he’d never seen anything like her before and was enthralled. At the same time, there was a fondness burning like a log fire in those eyes, warm and earned through time and trial together. No one else had ever looked at her like that.

The question was sneaking forwards and she’d only just opened her mouth to ask when he spoke, soft and simple.

“I love you.”

Rena was completely still.

_…Oh…_

The realisation was one of the gentler ones she’d had, but nonetheless changed things. _That’s_ what the face was. A smile creased his eyes at her slightly doe-eyed, still expression. After a quick blink and a brief shake of her head, she was more of her normal self. Still, that didn’t stop her keeping her eyes fixed on the wound as she cleaned an already pristine patch of skin.

“You just saying that so I’ll ‘let you go’ and all that shit?”

Gladio snorted a soft laugh and shook his head. He spoke again, earnest and true, as he held that look on his face and made sure to meet her eyes.

“I love you.” He nodded, thumb stroking hers as he locked onto green eyes. “About damn time I told you. I _meant_ to, just… Never got round to it.”

A gentle frown gathered her brows. A different question left her as a delicately hoarse whisper.

“Why?”

His huffed breath brought a grin to his face again. He shrugged lightly, winced a little at the pain, before giving his answer.

“Just do.”

His steady assurance was as honest and gentle as himself. The soft gravel in that voice may as well have been the earth under her feet, the only thing keeping her grounded. After finding herself wordless, she shook her head and bit the inside of her lip. They’d said those three words in dozens of ways, some longer and some shorter, but it had always been there. Once again, it was more than the realisation of rain; it was the sensation of it seeping into the skin and joining beings.

“C’mere,” he coaxed, barely above a whisper but enough to get her eyes back up to his.

Rena moved the cross of his necklace down from his shoulder and leant forwards as requested. Her forehead rested in place of the pendant on warm, smooth skin as a large hand buried in her hair. A stubbled cheek pressed to her temple before softer lips pressed a quiet kiss.

The quiet winding of one around the other as her hand moved to the back of his neck was one that granted inexplicable peace. It was cryptic and confusing but being tangled up in each other set them free. For all the calm offered when feeling alone, but not lonely, in the world, being alone together gave safety. A sense of duality, of push and pull, equilibrium defined by the fluidity of human nature.

As he nudged at her, a smile fixed on his face in full bloom, he peppered enough kisses onto her cheeks to make them blush and bring out her roses. After leaning his head back for a moment to look at the fresh blossoms, their foreheads met as noses rubbed against each other. The inhale taken in synchrony was one she shaped on its return.

“I love you.”

Gladio was sure he must’ve glowed.

“Tell me again,” he pleaded through a beam. He nudged against her cheek only to feel her own smile spread. “Please.”

Arms wound around his neck and eyes as soft as they’d ever been, she leant back enough to lock with his, to let forest and earth fuse again. She spoke with absolute certainty and an honesty that made his chest swell under the wound.

“I love you, Gladiolus Amicitia. I’ve got no fuckin’ idea why,” she admitted, shaking her head. “There’s a thousand reasons and none, but it is what it is.”

Gladio would only ever break a smile like that to kiss her. They met with sweet reassurance, tying the ribbon and pressing the wax seal on the rolled parchment of those words. Being lost in nowhere was a heaven shared through joined lips and soft touches. When they finally broke apart, and it always felt like breaking, they stayed close enough to warrant whispers.

“Happy?”

“Hell yeah,” he breathed through a grin.

“Good,” she said, smiling at the sensation of thick eyelashes brushing with hers. “Now go the fuck to sleep.”

A few warm, quiet beats of laughter rumbled from him with all the harmlessness of distant thunder. He waited for and helped her pack away the last of the medkit supplies before he reached aside and dimmed the lantern until the small flame died and left them to the quiet blue of the early night. Gladio held his breath as he shifted down into the bed and settled on his back, limbs already stiff and aching.

With the medkit safely tucked under the bed where unsuspecting feet could avoid it, Rena turned back over and settled down on her front. The rough sheets, mild with fresher scent, gathered about t their hips. The familiar reshuffling of the dogs around them was one they hadn’t felt in a while. Neither came between or below the linen. Seyna had tucked her paws and tail under herself as she lay at Gladio’s other side, head resting on his forearm. Ochre curled up between Rena’s knees, facing the end of the bed as he shimmied into place.

Drowsy peace came with the resumption of the old routine. Gladio’s hand rested on the hip furthest from him and rubbed gently at the smooth, scarred skin. She’d nestled into his side as both curved to each other. A yawn that stretched her passed to him before both settled into the comfort of familiar presences and newer admissions. Gladio could still hear it in his mind, soft as a feather landing on water. He leant to press a kiss to her cheek and whispered warm and hoarse.

“I love you.”

“I love you too, now go the fuck to sleep. Please.”

He allowed himself a quiet laugh before resting easy and letting his body weigh on the bed, simply held there by gravity and exhaustion. He bit the mischief back for a moment before allowing himself to indulge.

“Was that a Coleman lantern?”

“Gladio…” she warned.

To stop him reaching across, the arm across her back was moved and then held under her cheek. He snorted a laugh and let his hand drift through her hair, get caught and submit to being there. The pair reshuffled again as he scooted himself closer. Rena lifted her head before letting it rest heavy on his shoulder, one arm draped up over his chest, clear of the wound, before pale fingers buried in the thickness of his hair.

She felt his chest rise with an inhale that could only mean he was going to speak.

“I-.”

“I’m going to set a limit on how many times you can say that in a day, alright?” she mumbled hoarsely against his skin. Gladio snorted a laugh and took the breath of preparation again.

“I was just gonna say… I wish we could stay here,” he whispered.

“Mmh,” Rena hummed in agreement. Her brows gathered in a small frown, but she knew this was waiting for her. It almost hurt to say it. “We’ll give you a few days, then we’ll get you back to Lestallum.”

“Oh, you’re not gonna drag my ass back there tomorrow then, huh?” he jested.

“You won’t even be awake, and I don’t have a truck… Or a wheelbarrow. Or a canoe,” she raised her brow, fingertips mapping the shell of his ear as he settled into the touch and quiet comfort. “And if you think I’m handing you back to those fuckers without making you eat something first, you’re wrong.”

He grinned and pressed a kiss to her hair.

“You gonna leave me to go hunting tomorrow? Could go with you.”

The two beats of a hum were a negative. “You need to sleep. Then eat. Then you can start doing all your mad-bastard shit again.”

“Hey, that’s _powerful-blessed_ -mad-bastard now…” he remarked, stretching out his hand before letting it relax again. A soft thought crossed his mind and became words before he could stop himself. Gladio yawned and played her hair between his fingers. “I was already blessed, though.”

He could feel her shaking her head. With his eyes closed, when she lifted her head away he was fully expecting a gentle beration.

His frown was craving when her lips met his, drawing a deep, croaked whimper from his chest. Parting left him as vulnerable and still as a fallen petal. The words whispered against his lips were persuasion, command, and from so soft a place.

“Go to sleep.”

His answer was another slow, dancing kiss, one that let them fall into nowhere before they parted once more and stayed close, falling into harmless oblivion as they drifted out onto the calm waters of sleep.

All four were fast asleep when he passed by and peeked into the room. The close, tangled embrace and immediate safety of being in each other’s presence was one he almost envied. It settled Cor. Gave him something he hadn’t known in a while.

Certainty.

He was soothed by the knowledge that the two of them would stay together, protect and provide for each other. Cor gave one last glance to the young couple before slipping from the room and taking up the first watch. He’d taught one as a child and had been witness to his ascension when he’d walked out of that chamber, blade in hand and heart still beating. He’d witnessed the refinement of the other, and an entirely different trial that had proven what she was capable of.

When the cool night air smoothed over his cheeks, he had one thought, one challenge he was sure they were ready to face.

_Come what may._


	23. Ruin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As summer begins to slip away, and time with it, the world changes too quickly to comprehend. Decisions are made, friends lost, others recovered, and all brace themselves for the darkness.

Rena had been walking long enough that it no longer felt she was simply trekking over the ground beneath her feet; both she and it were separate entities, one rolling while the other pushed it behind her with every step. All of Cleigne had passed under her boots. Sparse forests south of Lestallum, hiding their vineyards, had been brooding and golden in the sunrise. The thicker woods that gathered over the eastern mountains like a cloak, always in anticipation of winter, were dotted with grain and flax fields, before the few rice paddies that strayed from Saxham had met her in the middle of the night.

It had taken two days. Sleeping in any nook she considered safe enough and never for as long as she needed, in combination with a stomach that was empty more than it was full, was beginning to wear on her.

For now, the trees were small and there was a scent in the air. Salt. Space. Blue. Hidden by the branches made thick by their full summer foliage, the grass was tall enough to sweep against her fingertips.

Ochre and Seyna were on either side and a few feet ahead. When night stole most of their vision, the dogs acted as extensions to her senses. They could smell, hear and simply _know_ more than she did. The dogs stuck close, and knew better than to stray during the night, even as those hours grew longer. What few threats they had passed in the night had stood out brightly enough, glowing in a phosphorescence she’d only ever seen in the Thicket and dripping dark ichor.

Knowing when to walk away was often the only thing that allowed it.

The trees cleared ahead. A smooth, black stretch lay still and comfortable as it cut through the woods. The road held a lazy dare, as though it were a snake lounging in rest but always ready to strike when crossed. The open space alone was enough to make her think twice.

Rena slowed to a halt a few feet from the edge of the trees and took a careful scan of her horizon. The woods on the other side of the road were barely thick enough to hide her, but she’d have to try. Her destination was straight ahead, marked by a simple absence of stars on a moonless night. The lighthouse at Caem was a marker of days gone by, before the wall had retreated and life had become a cycle of sow, grow, reap, mill and send. Those were the hours on Cleigne’s clock. Another stood between end and beginning; winter, which simply meant _wait._

Quick and quiet, but with her movements smooth enough to go unnoticed, Rena hopped the low steel barrier and padded across the road. The dogs stuck close to her sides, always brushing against her legs, before they left the asphalt behind and ducked into the trees at the other side.

Back under a canopy, it was easier to breathe but harder to see. Instinct loosened its grip on the back of her neck, and gave her one final push up the hill. The sense of finality, of the prospect of rest for legs that were beyond tired, they simply lacked feeling, was one that loosened the dogs in their bones and made them bolder.

They trotted a little further and swept through the grass. Their wakes set a quiet magic in the darkest part of the night. It was stirred up and glowed with innocence and simplicity.

Fireflies.

Lights came and went, sent from the tall grass dyed blue by darkness until they rose, looped like burning ashes from a fire and fell softly back to rest. Each took their temporary moment to shine, as fleeting and soft as the sound of a plucked string, before fading away like a star watched for too long.

Rena allowed herself the moment and was consumed by a childlike wonder the defied her. While death had made her cautious, life had made her curious. Amongst the dancing fireflies as light played its own song, the dogs jumped and snapped their jaws at the insects. At the end of a long journey, it was enough to make her smile.

Her own legs, jeans dampened by the dew on tall grass, swept a few from their hiding places as she headed up the hill, towards the sound of waves soft on rocks they showed far more brutality by day.

The trees were still sparse, but just thick enough to hide her, when the close horizon granted by darkness took the form of wooden panels. Rena kept on until she was close enough to touch them, before following the wall around. The few gaps carved into the wood by time, salt and weather were enough to allow snippets of voices kept low. Amorphous words, but the low, thunderous tone of the Marshal was one she recognised immediately.

At the corner of the house, she peeked out at the clearing and checked it before walking silently to the small porch and knocking twice on the peeling, wooden door. The murmur of conversation inside fell silent. Ochre’s head tilted at the door as steps approached. It opened a crack and revealed one round, chocolate brown eye.

Rena nodded, well aware of her ragged appearance. A trek over rough terrain with more and more daemons every night had called for preparation. Atop the usual worn boots, jeans, grey tank and red flannel, there was a rifle strapped to her shoulder, an axe tied to the side of her rucksack and a knife at her thigh. Alongside the dogs, a stranger would have drawn their own weapons or closed the door and hoped.

“Good morning, ma’am,” she said quietly, voice crackling with the burn of going unused for hours, maybe days. The edge of the soft brown eye creased.

“It is…” Monica nodded, a warm smile spreading as she opened the door and stepped aside. “Come in, you must be starved.”

Rena lowered her head as she passed through the door and closed it behind her, the dogs close at her heels and curious of the stranger.

“I’m alright, thank you.”

The raised eyebrow and simple expression that read _I know better_ was one Monica wore with all the quiet finality of a mother. The decision was already made, but it was a look Rena didn’t recognise.

“Ma’am, I-.”

“You’re eating, Rena. End of story,” she said simply, before she turned and led further into the house.

Though the exterior was ragged and shabby, inside the walls was smooth in their age. Paint was mottled by time and salt, while rust clung to the steel fittings and put the scent of metal in the air. The large, glass dish of a light remained dim as a few small candles burned on the table. Their quiet flames revealed a familiar face.

Elbows on the table and back in familiar clothes, Cor raised a mug in greeting. He may not have smiled, but his frown softened.

“You made it.”

“Yeah, well. It was a nice walk, sir,” she cocked her head. A quiet beat of laughter sounded warm and low in his throat.

“Would’ve been a nicer drive, no doubt,” he noted. Steely blues sparked with flames as though they were being forged. There was a stillness in them again. A steady edge. His hands didn’t shake anymore. Cor pushed a seat out with his foot. “Sit.”

Rena set the rifle and her bag down by the chair before taking a seat and tucking in. With her forearms resting on the edge, she played with the linen binding her hands as the dogs curled around her feet.

There was a silent question being asked, and a month spent in each other’s company allowed him to hear and answer.

“They left at dusk. We won’t know until they arrive in Altissia and Cid sends word, if he can. If not, we won’t know until he gets back.”

“Mm,” she hummed an affirmative, hands busied by Seyna’s head in her lap.

Cor took another breath that could only mean he was going to speak on in the deep tone she’d heard ragged and torn by the edge of madness and nightmares. She’d never had to ask, but had pieced enough together when he’d cried names and curses in his sleep. It had taken weeks for him to sleep for more than half an hour at a time. He’d spent those weeks watching her carefully, as though she’d bite. By the third week, she’d been ready to.

She knew it wasn’t his fault and that grief could easily tear someone apart and change them for good.

Loss was a magnifying glass. One side could amplify everything, and overload the senses and self with the simple act of existing until a person found compromise; in limits, in a house, as though setting foot outside would make it happen all over again. The other minimised everything until a person became numb to existence and themselves. It changed a person until they only did what was necessary to survive, and needed something harsh to feel their pulse; a run, a fight, a drink.

Cor had known the first; the magnification and his limits had been his own body. They’d walked for days, until she’d had enough of open skies where engines could see them, heat and endless sunlight, drawn level with him, and led him into the woods.

Quiet and hidden from the world, his next fixation had been speech. Rena knew he didn’t mean to lecture, that it was just the tone of his voice. As the last of his kind, it was only natural that he felt the need to pass something on, to leave something behind. Regis had left Noctis; Clarus, Gladio and Iris; Drautos, war. Cor had decided to impart the wisdoms granted by decades of hellbent recklessness and sheer tenacity; the legend of the Immortal was forgone to simply be a man life had bruised, beaten and bloodied over and over again, and to pass on the lessons so that the next might avoid those same tortures.

“Sea’s fair this time of year and Cid’s made the trip before. All going well, they’ll already be in Accordan waters. They’ll be fine.”

The brief stare of skepticism she gave him almost made him proud. She knew better than to assume anything and in that respect, she was already wiser than he’d been at that age. Cor had no doubt that part of it was due to the beatings administered by his own hand. At times, it had taken no more than an order to have another bring her down for him.  

The dogs lifted their heads as quiet footsteps returned. Monica set a small, steaming bowl down in front of Rena, set down two mugs and filled them, along with Cor’s, with hot, sweet tea. The raised eyebrow she gave the younger woman was enough to make her look down at the meal that would keep her stuck at the table until she’d eaten it. Rice with peas and boiled carrots was topped by a tanned fillet of smoked mackerel, still bearing its fine, striped skin on one side. It was plain and simple, but hot.

With the scent of the smoke sweet and enticing under her nose, she picked quietly at the meal while Cor and Monica took up conversation.

“I think… this might be the first time they’ve both slept through the night.”

“In a while, yes,” Cor nodded, taking a sip of the scalding tea.

“The poor boy, he was so shaken up. Could barely close a door without him jumping out of his skin.” Monica’s brows gathered in a soft frown, hands cupping the hot mug. “I thought orphans were a thing of the past.”

“Iris was an orphan long before now.”

His meaning, however vague, had struck Monica and left her open-mouthed at her superior, and an old friend. After a light scoff and a shake of her head, she gestured as she spoke.

“He was her _father,_ Cor.”

His brows stayed fixed in their frown, though it was more a lamentation than discipline. “She barely knew him.”

“And Gladiolus? Was he still his son, or was he an orphan too? Less so because he trained with him? Saw him more than once a day-?”

“If he was lucky, or in trouble.”

Words failed Monica. She slumped back in the chair and sipped the tea, while her other hand worried the charm of her necklace. Cor set his own mug down with a heavy swallow. The bitterness of tea brewed for too long clung to his teeth in a dry film. Eyes far heavier than steel suddenly seemed older, as though he’d seen enough to be bored.

Rena had gone quiet, having eaten around the carrots and rice. She fed the dogs from her hand and while not ideal, it would be enough to keep their stomachs from making them reckless. They sat at either side of her, muzzles on her lap, and were fed in turn. They only became distracted when a quiet creak from the corner of the room gathered all of their attentions.

Small, meek and pale, Talcott stood at the bottom of the stairs. His forehead was sheened by sweat as large, watery hazel eyes widened under the collective stare. Shaken by nightmares and unable to sleep in their wake, he sought company among the living, though he hesitated. It had been a harsh lesson, but Talcott had learned not to trust everything he saw.

With that in mind, he simply stared back at them, almost vacant as he scrambled to make a decision. Two of them were clean and steady, mature in their age and all the wiser for it. They were respected, renowned and rightfully so.

The third was messy, guarded by large dogs. Sharp teeth were revealed when they licked their own muzzles clean, before sinking down to lie on the floor. That simple motion let him see past and catch on the rucksack and rifle.

Talcott visibly jolted when he heard gunshots ripping through wood, all over again. The room went black slowly, the same way it did when he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling until darkness flooded his eyes, until he could smell blood and hear his grandfather’s death all over again.

“You should be asleep.”

His vision returned as though someone had switched on a floodlight, and it blinded him for a moment. The steely blue stare that had pinned him over his shoulder had moved to the source. Deep green, messy hair and a manner too blunt and ragged to be deception, he was swiftly reminded of two things; she’d been more than capable of leaving them stranded in the mountain passes or killing them outright, and that she’d helped.

While Talcott’s mouth held open and round, trying to form an answer with a voice that simply wouldn’t cooperate, Rena spoke again.

“Come and get a drink, then try again.”

It took him a moment to nod before padding towards the table and taking the seat she’d pulled out for him. Rena took one sip from her mug of tea, discreetly making sure he was watching, before she held it out until small hands took hold of the ceramic and were warmed.

Monica shook her head gently at the boy, then flicked tired eyes to the Marshal’s pensive frown.

“What time is it?”

He took a deep breath, as though he’d been roused from sleep, and pushed his wrist further from his sleeve to focus on his watch.

“Quarter to five.”

Monica winced at the unholy hour and let her gaze settle heavy on the table, fingertips tracing the scratches and marks that time had put into the polished wood.

“Just go, Dustin should be up in an hour or so.”

“Are you sure?” she asked with pinched brows. Cor took another sip of tea and nodded.

“Check on Iris, too. Hopefully she slept through it-.”

He stopped abruptly, eyes fixed on an innocent culprit. Talcott had finished the tea but held onto the mug for its warmth. His small lap was covered by the head of a dog, with short fingers disappearing into the coat that was so dark it looked burnt. Seyna’s tail wagged slowly as she settled at the boy’s side. He’d slumped to his left and rested heavy against Rena’s arm while she unbound her hands and traded the stained, soiled linen for fresher fabric.

Monica’s expression softened at the sight. After a warm smile, made tepid by fatigue, she gave Rena a small nod, gently squeezed Cor’s shoulder before his hand covered hers, then made her way upstairs.

Quiet and more restful than any of them had been in weeks, Cor took a deep breath and sank back into the chair with his head back and eyes closed. He opened them again and peeked to the side. Though the windows were boarded up, some gaps were bigger than others and allowed a glimpse of the world they were so desperately trying to cling to.

The sun was rising. Pale peach as it seeped through the leaves gently ruffled by a breeze. Though it was a gentle wonder he’d seen countless times before, from training halls old and knew, over battlefields and cityscapes, this particular individual, rising over the fair sea to the east, was one that seemed to promise more. The world had been struck, like a ball by a bat, and left spinning so fast that change had blurred it. Only now, after having hit the ground with bruising impact, had the pace of things slowed and allowed them to breathe. Two months late, the first step had finally been taken.

“What’s that?”

Both turned to Talcott, before following the boy’s fixed gaze. Both frowns loosened when they saw them. Glowing through a space between wooden planks, still and focused, was a single pair of watchful red eyes.

Wood splintered as shots ripped at the wood. All three ducked from their seats and steadied themselves against the floor, crouched low. Rena locked eyes with Cor before looking at Talcott. He was pale. Shaking. Hazel eyes stared blankly at empty space.

A heavy thud shook the door against its lock, hard enough to jolt a large tear from Talcott’s wide eyes.

It was happening all over again. The knocking. The bullets. The blood. There was blood on his hands.  Everywhere. Sprayed warm across his face as it painted the blue walls of the Leville scarlet.

Cautious of touching him in case he screamed, Rena and Cor were still in place when the second thud hit the door and threw dust from the fittings. He opened his mouth to speak and reached to put his open hand into Talcott’s line of sight.

Seyna beat him to it. She brushed against Talcott and pushed her head into his hands, licking at his fingers until he made a weak attempt to find sanity in her presence. Small hands formed fists around her fur. He blinked and looked at the adults. After a nod from Rena, his attention fixed on Cor.

Once teacher and student, the pair of them locked eyes and made a silent decision.

He turned and crept towards the edge of the table, stopped by another pound at the door, before gathering Talcott to his side, peeking over the top of the table and sprinting up the stairs with the boy in front of him.

Rena had strapped the rifle across her back and shouldered into the rucksack. Ochre sank low and growled when the door was forced again. With both dogs close at her side, Rena crept forwards, hidden by a mesh of chair legs and her own dark clothes against the aged walls. She came to the end of the table. Her eyes traced the line she chose; forwards, up the stairs, all the way to the room with Cor’s hand holding the door open by a few inches. Crumpled into a ball, one knee underneath her while the other was level with her chest, she took as deep a breath as she could, braced against the floor and readied to spring forwards.

Another deafening thud against the door made her jolt.

The slam when it landed on the floor made her freeze.

A cool, sea breeze curled into the room, wrapping around it like a snake. Metal boots met wooden floors and stalked inside. Eyes wide as she stared at the bottom stair, she glanced up at Cor. Steel blue eyes shone from the dark of the room. He shook his head. She nodded. Cor took her instruction, sank back into the darkness and shut the door silently.

Swallowing was painful with a throat that had gone as hard and unforgiving as stone. She turned her head and peeked through the chairs that acted to hide her. Six legs. They shone dull and dark, glinting in the pale light of a day that was only just beginning.

They set an edge in her, as still and sharp as a razor. There was no way of reading them; no amount of instinct could help. The moments of prediction granted by muscle groups that moved before a limb or heads that twitched towards sound were nonexistent with magitek soldiers. They moved in smooth, linear fashion and gave no hints.

Fingertips braced against the floor, Rena waited for one to turn away before rounding the corner of the table. Red eyes moved so fast they sliced a line through the dim. Shoulder level with the next corner of the table, she locked her eyes on the door and reached back to still the dogs.

With three magitek searching the room, unblinking red stares marked as uncrossable ground and setting her limits, timing was everything. She leant forwards to round the final corner and line herself up with the final stretch.

A new, dark pair of boots strode into the house, alongside the heavy head of an axe. The sunrise stretched over the edge of the blade and bloodied it. She rocked back on the spot, teeth gritted. Dark eyes searched under the table again. Eight legs and one axe meant three assault rifles.

Bounds hands formed fists. Rena reached back and pulled the axe from its binding point at the side of her rucksack. It would slow one, at most. Eyes constantly flicking between the four pairs of legs and judging the turn of their heads based on that, she waited for a chance and rounded the next corner.

Temptation was a silken hand cupping her cheek, soft and smooth as the sea breeze, that coaxed her forwards and whispered _run._

She resisted.

Rena crept forwards, always curled in a tight ball and ready to spring forwards. The dogs continually nudged at her hips, crawling across the ground as they kept their heads low. Wood creaked. Eyes wide and still as stone, Rena forced herself to look.

Three.

Axe in a white-knuckled grip, she turned her head.

There was one behind her, at the narrow end of the table she’d just left behind.

Instinct was a welcome flood as it made adrenaline burn like ashes in her gut before they settled and showed direction with the smallest breeze. It gave one silent guidance.

_Out._

Rena crept forwards, fighting to keep herself steady, before she reached the end of the table and locked on the doorway. The light shifted. She gritted her teeth. Faced with a choice of possibly having the element of surprise on a potential soldier, or facing the wrath of four if she was discovered, Rena chose uncertainty.

The beginning of a creak in the floorboards was her cue.

Rena used the sound as cover and wrestled with every fibre of her being to keep her movement smooth and quiet, when everything screamed to throw herself from the building. She stuck close to the wall. Her fingers wrapped around the doorframe as the other hand readied the axe. Ears twitched to catch any sound. Deep breath. Another step. Clear of the wall. Out of the house.

The small porch was empty, but a quick scan in the dim light revealed another six troopers dotted around the edges of the clearing.

Rena gently took Ochre by the scruff and guided him to a gap in the railing. He hopped down, hidden by a sparse bush. She did the same with Seyna before vaulting over the top and hid with them.

Conscious of the four magitek roaming the house, and that it would only be so long before they climbed the stairs, she needed a distraction and fast.

She stuck close to the house and slipped past the metal barrels at the end, before she darted into the woods, dogs close at her heels. Plan unfolding with every step, she hid in the trees and began to sweep around the bottom of the clearing. Hidden amongst high grass and tree trunks, the world was the shade of blue that always marked the tide before dawn.

Quick and careful, she stopped to check the clearing.

Five.

Rena peeked around the side of the tree she’d used as cover and whipped back, flat against it with knots between her shoulders. Teeth gritted and grip on the axe tight, she stayed completely still. A spread hand made the dogs lie, hidden, in the grass.

She glanced down. Metal boots were almost level with the tree. Smooth gears whirred in a quiet hum as its head turned. With the clunk of heavy joints, it marched forward. Eyes lock on the back of its helmet, she turned the axe in her hand once, twice, and swung.

The blade cut into metal and crumpled it. Shots were reflexively fired at the ground, throwing up clumps of dirt and grass. Sparks flew from the wires as it jerked before another hack left the head hanging. It hit the ground knees first, then thudded onto its side.

Flat against the tree again, she could hear them. Under waves and the rustle of grass, heavy metal boots stamped the ground with weighty intention. She could make out three pairs, each one closer than the last.

The shots had been too close and she hadn’t moved fast enough. Teeth gritted and forcing herself,  she put her hand behind her back and dipped it into the armiger.

Shifting smoke waters should’ve granted relief and reinforcement, but she wasn’t looking for a sword or shield.

The dagger burst into her grip, its flash of light kept secret between the tree and herself. Weighing it in her hand, she eyed a tree fifteen feet away. It wasn’t far, but it would have to be enough.

There were more footsteps. Five. That left two near, if not inside, the house.

Rena emptied her lungs silently and launched the dagger. It lodged into the tree with a solid thud. She waited for the footsteps that became swishes through grass, as ignorant of their detection as a snake with enough venom to kill any threat, the soldiers began to gather on her left. As they came amongst the trees, brutal things of metal and ichor, she slid around the oak hiding her to stay out of red focus.

She flicked her hand to keep the dogs close before sprinting ten, twenty, thirty feet, and ducking behind a boulder. Breaths forced silent through an open mouth, she peered back. Some had gathered at the fallen trooper, whilst others had already begun to patrol down the hill.

Rena stepped to the side and checked the clearing. Two. Right outside the door.

With a plan as changing as the leaves over her head, she still had an objective. Jeans soaked by the salted dew on the grass, she darted between trees and rocks to climb the hill and gain a vantage point.

Hidden behind a smooth, sandy-coloured boulder, she bid the dogs to hide in the grass and stay still. A bound hand found exactly what it was searching for; a stone. No bigger than a tangerine, it was heavy. Rena took a single, deep breath, stepped from her hiding place and launched it at the house.

It struck old boards hard enough to make its impact loud and landed with a dull thud on sandy ground. Programmed to investigate, the troopers by the door turned their heads. She clenched her teeth so hard they threatened to crack before crouching to find another stone.

When she stood up again, they’d gathered where the stone had fallen. A quick bite to her bottom lip which quickly proved bruising, pain made her focus. Beyond the porch and the end of the house, was the cluster of propane tank and oil drums she’d slipped past earlier. Another deep breath, stone weighed in her hand, she turned over the other side of the boulder and threw.

The sound of stone thwacking against steel bounced off the trees. Relying on nothing more than input for directive and incapable of suspicion, the riflemen were already marching towards the end of the house.

Just as she let her hand relax, and herself breathe, a dark shape appeared at the top end of the house. Mentally cursing, she squinted through the dim twilight. The black only broke to give tanned, weathered skin and, when the light hit them, steely blue eyes.

Rena peered down the hill once more. The two at the clearing had heard the rest in the woods and were marching down the hill, limbs jolted by the slope. Fifty feet away, she met Cor’s stare and showed her forearm. Bared and pale, it was enough approval.

Iris was brought to his side and escorted across the top of the clearing, quick and quiet until they were hidden in the trees, ten feet from Rena. She checked again. Clear. Monica and Dustin were given the same signal. With Talcott between them, they crossed and hid. Loosely gathered and one step closer to escape, a single nod exchanged between Cor and Rena was permission to carry on.

A pat to her leg made the dogs stand. The groups split off, setting themselves down the hill and away from the cliff in a wave.

With the light returning, time was running out. Every second made them more visible, and brightened their surroundings enough to make red eyes harder to discern. With the woods still blue in twilight, they had a chance with due caution.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose when she came level with the bottom of the clearing. She’d left the troopers at the start of the hill, where millennia had carved a bottleneck on pursuit of an outcrop. They were thinner woods, harder to hide in, and they were headed straight for them.

She’d trapped them.

She breathed a curse, voice shaking under the weight of it and felt her mind claw for a solution, no matter how much it brutalised her in the process. Lost and trapped, with the tide rising at her back, crashing into the cliff like hounds baying for a treebound quarry, her legs felt weak. It felt as though the rock was crumbling beneath her feet, giving way and giving her to the sea.

Rena swept another stone from the ground and launched it at the side of the house. She peered to see her results. One had turned around. Teeth gritted and fighting back a growl, she needed more. Sound and sight.

Her fingertips burned as they entered the armiger, then smoothed in the cool waters. Reaching further than she had before, past the present weapons until she found exactly what she was looking for. It was something that could sicken her when the rest of them were so far away.

Absence.

The space the dagger usually occupied, right next to its counterpart, was harder to feel and almost impossible to grip. She forced herself to. Pins and needles spread up her arm in a wave that made the limb sickeningly heavy and limp.

The flash at her side was blinding.

With the ornate hilt of the dagger back in her hand, cooling rapidly as it settled from being summoned, she barely gave it any time before she launched it to the centre of the clearing. It bit into the ground and stood proud for a moment. Her eyes watched the treeline as the others crept behind her.

One.

She brought the dagger back, hiding the flash between herself and the rock she’d crouched behind.

Four.

It was a fine line between hoping for more, or taking what she could get. Rena let the decisions fight in her mind but they were evenly matched and refusing to give up, each presenting their own benefits and costs.

A soft, quiet knock came from her right, down the hill.

Green eyes were immediately on the perpetrator. Cor met her gaze and jerked his head over his shoulder before he turned and stalked back into the trees and shrinking cover of darkness. With the dogs gathered at her side, she gave one last glance to the clearing and hoped to hell it would be enough.

Groups stayed huddled close as they spread apart to creep down the hill. She could see the tiny clearing that had danced with fireflies ahead. Rena even let herself breathe.

Shots ripped the tree to her side and sent splinters flying. She dived forwards, pushed her heels into the ground to stop and backed herself against a rock. It took a moment for the dogs to emerge from the taller grass, creeping slowly towards her with eyes that begged for instruction, to know how to help.

Bound hands spread their fingers and told them to hide.

Boots stamped closer. Rena took a deep breath and forced herself still, hand tightening around the axe again. When the footsteps stopped behind the rock, she willed them to turn and head away again.

They turned. Mirroring its movements, she edged around the rock and stayed on the opposite side. The downward slope faced her again. With nowhere else to hide within fifteen feet, Rena darted forwards and hid behind the first tree. The second. Third. She continued to work her way down the hill, pausing long enough to listen for footsteps as she peered left at the bulk of the woods, always searching for red.

When her gaze swept back and looked for her next hiding spot, she saw red.

Shaking, small and completely vacant, Talcott was staring at his hands and the blood that he’d wiped from his own nose.

“Shit…” she barely breathed.

A single red dot appeared on the tree beside him before it began to search for a target. The laser sight only just brushed his fingertips before Rena snatched him from open space.

Talcott came crashing back to consciousness with a bound hand over his mouth and another on his chest,holding him flush against something warm. Something that breathed.

She set the axe down on the ground before he could fix on it and leant to the side to catch the focus of frantic eyes. He locked on her the second he recognised her, though that brought little comfort. Rena held a finger against her lips to hush him before the hand was back on his chest.

Heavy footsteps trampled grass and earth carelessly, no more than a mechanism, as they drew closer. Teeth gritted, Rena sank down against the tree and brought Talcott with her. His breath was warm against her hand, and had taken up a desperate speed and shallowness that could only mean he was either going to vomit, faint, or scream.

One metal boot glinted in her peripheral. She edged around the tree, keeping him still and quiet in her hold. One glance to her side revealed an assault rifle and a turning head that could so easily look down.

She fought back a jolt when the grass in front of her moved. A dark paw and darker muzzle poked through the cover. Honey-toned eyes were pleading.

Brows drawn into a frown, Rena had to fight this decision alone. The dogs were fast, yes, but bullets were faster. They knew to hide in cover, and not to attack unless told. Teeth, however sharp, were not a match for metal. It felt as though she’d swallowed a ball of razor wire, only for it to unravel and slice at her stomach until the blood made her heavy.

She flicked her hand.

Both dogs set loose a string of barks and shot from cover, sprinting through the woods. Bullets ripped clumps of grass from the ground. Rena picked Talcott up and ran.

With other guns joining the chorus and both dogs still barking, she only set him down when the road was in sight. It was only when she stopped to whistle that he tugged, his hand clinging to her wrist. He’d kept running when she’d halted, only to be held back by the person he refused to let go of.

Fixed on the hill as flashes, red and darker shapes cut the layered view, she only moved again when both dogs came barrelling down the hill.

“Alright, go! _Go!”_

He raced on ahead. She drew level and tugged him sideways when a tree exploded into splinters. Heart pounding in her head and shaking too hard for adrenaline to slow her down, the black stretch of road was so close.

Then she heard it.

The sound of consequence.

The cry given out was as close as a dog could get to screaming. Harsh and frantic, it fell silent, then came again. Rena stopped dead, head whipped back to the trees. She didn’t hesitate. She just ran.

Teeth gritted and eyes searching for one or the other, the pale flash of Ochre sprinted towards her before he darted to the side. She followed.

The scent of a dog’s blood is exceptionally bitter. Seldom spilled in anything other than devotion and loyal attempt to carry out instruction, it was the scent of allowing the self to be betrayed, of giving until there was nothing left.

Seyna tried to stand, but her back legs gave way with a whine that cut Rena. Red flashed from up the hill. Close. She gathered the dog up, wincing as she yelped, turned and ran. She ran over grass, roots, and straight onto asphalt, where bullets bounced in flashing streaks like hard rain.

She ran, and she didn’t look back.

* * *

The house was so quiet.

It felt wrong to make any more noise than was necessary to survive. Breathing was silent, doors given all the patience in the world to close them without sound, and little more than single-word questions and answers exchanged in the ghosts of whispers.

She stirred the mug without letting the spoon touch the sides and break that fragile, tense silence that trembled like a window pane in a hurricane. There was no point. To be in that house was to walk on broken glass, and she’d done that before.

Rena set the spoon down in the sink, one side first before the other, silent. Mug in hand, she left the kitchen and padded through the house.

Solid floorboards were too old to make a sound. What little was made dulled in the white cob walls, stained by the flames that once burned in tiny clay sconces and the simple yellowing of time and weather, of living. The old farmhouse had been abandoned; furniture left where it lay. The building itself was a tomb, and those meant to rest there were in quiet graves a mile from the main house. Time had smoothed the stones and blurred the words with moss. There had only been two, but the house was large enough to hold both a family and seasonal workers.

With Dustin keeping correspondence in Lestallum, when the five of them had arrived, they’d fixed what they could, burned what they couldn’t, and waited.

Five had become eight.

They’d made enough beds for nine.

Hidden in northern Duscae, the house sat amongst fields were no more than scars. The best years of the region were behind them, and that was beginning to become true of the world.

Ochre brushed heavily against her leg and walked in silence, head low and tail limp. Rena could’ve sworn that dog was clenching his teeth sometimes. He stayed close at her side and didn’t perk up when fingers buried in his coat. With eyes that dull, the black markings that had always looked as though he’d poked his head into a sooty fireplace and sneezed, had begun to seem more of a shroud.

Rena turned into the small hallway at the back of the house. She was faced by three doors. One on her left, one on the right, and another straight ahead. The chilled light seeping in from underneath that door was temptation itself. Hunts weren’t enough. She’d never had so many mouths to feed, and for so long, but fed they were. As the days shortened, faster than she’d ever known them to, Rena needed out. She needed a break. Five, ten minutes. An hour. Nothing more. Just some free air that wasn’t being clung to by everyone else.

_You’d be back before they’d even know it. Go._

Teeth gritted, she slipped through the door on the right.

The storeroom was tiny, windowless and filled by a few barrels. One was ale. It had been there for decades, the brand still fresh on the wood and its contents foul. Best left to rot. The other was being used as a washing drum, though currently it only held the board, paddle, and a few cloths left to dry over the edges. The final barrel was on its side, open and dark. Linen chewed by generations of mice that had used it for nesting had been cleaned and stuffed with other ruined rags. Ochre sniffed at the entrance for a moment before carefully stepping in.

Rena crouched, then knelt, and set the mug at her side. The perfume from the barrel should’ve offered unspeakable company, warm and drowsy with the meadow-herb scent of the dogs and a slight, lusty edge of alcohol. Ochre licked at her wrist when she reached in, before honey-toned eyes opened and a dark muzzle snuffled for a hand of its own. Seyna was feverish to the touch, but alive.

“Hey, sweetpea…”

After a whine was given the reply of a quick kiss to the top of her head, Rena left the dogs and slipped from the room again.

Two doors, and the pull of the one that would lead outside, to the clearing, the wood heavy with leaves not ready to die, and the creek that whispered _change_ with its morning mists, was all too tempting.

The roof was too heavy. Every inch of wall may have looked smooth, but it was as thorned and catching as a thicket. Rena had been caught with the black snake before, one that had two forms. Quick and vicious, it burned a person until they were destroyed, or a slower death, one that simply drained life. Grief she acknowledged, understood, and could not feel, was all around. The snakes of others were poised to strike should she set a foot wrong.

Snakes had already driven her from one house.

Rena opened the door on the left wall and stepped into the dark room, making sure to let her footsteps make sound. Though there was a window, and a candle, there was no need for light there. What little snuck in around the shutters, and mocked him like echoing laughter, was enough to show the lines on one side of him. The washed hair that had fallen limp and soft, the body that hadn’t moved for days, and the hands that sat motionless in his lap. The sight of Ignis was enough to convince her of his own death sometimes, and he was dying.

As she stepped closer, Rena breathed a quiet sigh that would reveal identity, not only size. The mug she’d left a few hours before was stone cold and full, as though it had never been hot. Her brows gathered before she glanced at him.

The scars he hadn’t let her examine were there for her to see, and difficult to look past. No longer dulling them with powder, the furious puce looked hot to the touch. Still hands that had once been unable to keep still for long, always in a dance between each task and the next, in permanent fluidity and grace, were scarred and scuffed. Once flawless skin had been ripped away, and yet it left him more guarded than ever.

His eyes were enough to make her own drop to the ground for a moment, unable to meet them. They moved slowly, as though each second spent open was pain itself, and swept the room in lost twitches, as though he stood a chance of seeing anything.  Once a lush, fresh green, as vibrant and brilliant as the man himself, they were a summer meadow shrouded in the coldest, thickest winter mist. They were lost.

Having lost one of his senses, and himself, Ignis was determined to kill the rest. He’d refused to eat, to even drink, until his stomach had stopped screaming at him, as though it had been cut from his belly. He’d sat in silence until his ears rang. Not even air had passed his lips, and the scents brought by others were beginning to fade into the room. Each sense he lost was yet another piece taken away to be part of some ghost he was yet to become.

He despised the word. In his mind, it should’ve been long ago. Each time he thought about it, the right time seemed further and further back in his memory. Zegnautus. Altissia. Insomnia. His childhood home, when he’d dropped his glasses on a road and nearly been hit by a car. The hospital where he was born, somewhere he didn’t remember for that occasion but simply knew from others. Ignis loathed the word _yet,_ because it meant this would continue.  

The numbing was taking too long. He felt as though his entire being was burning with pins and needles, but never growing heavy until it stopped and gave him relief. Ignis wasn’t sure he deserved relief, or mercy, or for it to end, but how he wished for it all to end.

Enamel left wood, then another met it. Heavy, but quiet.

He gritted his teeth sharply and bit into his cheek.

There it was; the one sense that would never truly fade, not until the end.

Pain.

Each broken heartbeat was pain. Every breath drawn was pain. Every thought, every memory, every image he could conjure but never see again, was pain.

“Alright Iggy, c’mon,” she coaxed quietly, barely above a whisper.

A hand far warmer than his own, heated by blood that simply said _carry on,_ slipped under his fingers and guided him to the mug. Once he’d taken a firm enough grip, though it shook, he lifted it from the table.

“Careful, it’s hot.”

He hummed a hoarse reply and brought the mug to his lap, before he cupped it with both hands. The warmth of it began to seep through his fingers, flooding up his arms as though he’d plunged them into a hot bath. It was soft and thick, but still a sensation he would sooner leave behind than continue through the world, blind and aimless as a newborn.

The bitter thought that he’d done little more real living than an infant was one that made him huff a laugh through his nose. Was it truly life if he was living for someone else? So dependent on their existence that he’d forgone his own and become little more than a shadow, a ghost.

Ignis was far more than that for Noctis. He’d been his mind, his thoughts, and at times, his spine. He’d given so much of himself. His entirety. Ignis had damned the entire world, and even that had not been enough. Even if he couldn’t see it, Ignis was as intrinsic and necessary as the sinews of that boy. He’d held him together countless times and put it down as nothing more than duty and dedication.

Ignis had been a ghost for years, though his body was only just beginning to catch up. He’d never thought it would be so simple as giving in.

The mug in his hand was as stubborn as the hand that had brought it. That stubbornness had been damned, cursed, screamed at, all within his own mind. In the endless silence that came between the door opening, the mug being changed and another hand, another person, reminding him of his own existence, had left him with one conclusion. Stubbornness required patience, and his own was wearing thin.

She knew better than to ask him to drink it, or to say she’d added something new. Rena knew better than to speak once the mug was in his hands. It would earn her nothing but silence, though a few days before she would’ve been given a curt puff of breath, somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. She gave him one last look and turned away, slipping from the room before she closed the door and left him to his pillowed silence. That room was far too big a coffin, cushioned by emptiness around a body that was still warm, no matter how hard it tried to freeze.

Rena opened the third door.

Cool air, far too crisp for this early in the year but not bathed in enough sunlight to warm, cupped her cheeks with craving, desperate embrace, pulling her closer. She stood firm in the doorway, emptied the cold coffee from the mug, and took a deep draw of the offer before turning away. Whether it was her or it that whimpered in the creak of the door when she closed it, she wasn’t sure.

Rena left the mug in the sink, alongside the spoon, and padded silently through the house. The stairs didn’t creak when she climbed them, though her shoulder did pop when she stretched. There was a burning across them. The silence had pulled her taut and made her careful. That, and almost two days without sleep, constantly cycling between watches, hunts, cooking, watches, had kept her from the bed. Even when she had slept, rare and fleeting as it was, she’d slept alone.

Constant guard, at both the front and back of the house, kept two of the three occupied at all times. Cor, Monica and Rena were on duty around the clock. One would sleep, hunt or cook, while the others would keep watch.

Talcott and Iris were too young, though she often lent a hand in the kitchen. It helped take her mind off things. Even when resigned to a fate she wouldn’t share and a future she wouldn’t have, the rose she’d held had a thorn, and it had cut deep.

The others had been given time to rest and recover. Escaping Gralea, even when helped by an Imperial turncoat, had been a bloody affair. It had taken the rising of hell to drag them away from Noctis. None of them could really bear to leave him behind, not when he’d already been made to face fate alone.

Head heavy by the time she reached the little door at the end of the hall, sleep was a dark cloud around her head, as thick as her hair and endlessly compelling. The thought of waking up in a few hours, as she would, was one that made her question the purpose of bothering to sleep at all. Two days of consciousness, however alert and, at times, anxious, was more than enough to exhaust her.

The door was open by a few inches. Fabric was shifting gently inside. With one hand spread against the wood made cool by condensation, she pushed the door.

Gladio was digging through a drawer. His holdall was on the bed. After he’d found what he was after, a spare flashlight, he took the single step back to the side of the bed and threw it into the bag. When he reached in to rearrange the contents, there was no blue glow against his arms, and no clink of potion vials against anything else. There was metal and fabric and the sound of his teeth grinding.

More cautious than careful, Rena leant her shoulder against the doorframe and watched him for a few moments. Arms looped across her front, but not crossed, she fixed her eyes on the ground until she was sure the question was going to be gentle, no harsher than a snowflake and lacking its pointedness.

“Where’re you going?”

He stopped in place, dark eyes fixed on the bag. She could see his jaw tense and ball at the joint, as he bit back the force and heat from his words.

“Not right now.”

The dismissal was simple. It met her ears as a challenge she wasn’t eager to take. Mind too frayed by exhaustion to be kind, but too nervous to be cruel, she was still trying to find a middle ground when the sound of the zip cut her thoughts. Gladio slung the bag over his shoulder and made for the door.

She stood in his way.

Stalled, but by no means stopped, he clenched his jaw and kept his eyes fixed on the floor. His tone carried heavy warning.

“Rena-."

“No.” She shook her head. “Just- no.”

She heard his breath seethe deep in his chest, taking heat even as he bit it back.

“Move.”

His tone was flat. Hers was hard.

“No.”

Strangling a growl in his throat, he shouldered past her and into the hall. Darkening the small space that crushed him with every moment in those walls, he stormed through the upper level of the house.

And she went after him.

“Gladio, come on. Just give it a few days, just until tomorrow even, I know-.”

“No.”

The blunt tone was bitter. Frown gathered and jaw clenched, she slipped in front of him as he turned to head down the stairs.

“Why do you get to leave?”

All softness had left her tone, and made her hard as iron. It had never been her element, but she’d had to learn. This was the hook, and she needed him to think twice, three times. As many as it took for him to realise what he was doing.

Gladio lost his patience.

“Cause I’m the one that fucked up! Okay?” he snapped through gritted teeth, eyes burning as his hands became clawed.

Met by silence and a shaken head, Gladio shouldered past again and marched down the stairs.

“The fuck- you didn’t! You’re here! They’re here!”

He stopped halfway down the flight, turned and roared at her.

“WE’RE NOT ALL HERE!”

Ever his equal, she matched tone, volume and sheer tenacity. He turned his back.

“You think going out there’s gonna fix that?! What the fuck are you doing?!”

Gladio whipped around and locked on her as she stood a few, small feet away from him, and bellowed.

“Maybe I’m giving a shit! You should try it, when you’re not too busy pretending you don’t give a fuck!”

“Don’t you fuckin’ turn this on me!”

“Yeah?! You can scream at me all you fucking want! It’s not gonna change _anything!”_

“So you’re just gonna run off?! Into _that?!_ You know what’s out-!”

“I KNOW DAMN FINE WHAT’S OUT THERE! HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN YOU!”

Bitter snarls twisted both expressions as they locked on each other. Gladio could’ve set her on fire for all the heat and grit in his glare. His gestures only made him bigger, stronger. Blood was pounding in his head, so hard it felt like he was being punched. Even his vision had blurred.

Sharp and always crueller than she intended, it was a venom she hoped would change his mind.

“AND WHAT FUCKING GOOD THAT DO YOU?! DIDN’T CHANGE A FUCKING THING!”

He almost jolted. Gladio had been given a bite, and he relished the show. Seeing her coil and strike made his heart hammer, breaking ribs only to tear itself apart on them. It was a dark and sick part of him that wanted that poison, bitter and hot, to feel it lace his veins and burn him.

He took a step closer and towered over her, teeth gritted as he spat the words at her, inches from her face. She met him seething.

_“Watch your mouth, bitch.”_

Dark and burning, seeing him squirm enough to need insults instead of arguments gave a twisted pleasure. It wasn’t given to her, it fed something else. Something that simply wanted victory, selfish and cruel. That part had never been hers, and she’d feared it. It made her form fists so tight her nails cut her palms.

They’d fought before, and true to style, her strikes came fast and ruthless, though this time, she didn’t touch him. With every shred of cut glass, of liquor flames and years of it, alongside the sheer volume a strong pair of lungs could give, was enough to push him back.

“Go and get yourself killed? Is that the plan?! Like that’s going to fucking change anything- _why_ the fuck would you _ever_ think that’s a good idea?! It’s done! There’s fuck all you can do about it and you think a suicide mission’s just gonna tie things up nicely for you?! _Fuck you!_ It all turns to shit and you’re just gonna fucking _leave?!”_

“YOU WANNA LEAVE?! _LEAVE!”_

Staring each other down, both side on to the door, either of them could’ve reached for the handle and made it stop.

They wanted more.

Blood was addictive, and poison sweet. Their first tastes of each other’s, of the bitterness and fury, demanded sick investigation. Every provocation, every subtle knife to a weak point, every invitation for more, tore them apart. Each was attacking their own weakness; the other.

She’d gone so still, he hoped, _prayed,_ that she’d slap him. A sharp strike, fast and hard, enough to split his cheek open. Something to give him hurt, and make the numbness go away. He needed pain.

But she’d stopped.

“...Don’t-.”

“Don’t fucking _what_ , Rena?! What the fuck do you want me to do?!”

The door opened, but not by their hands.

“What the _hell_ is going on?” Cor demanded through gritted teeth.

The sheer sight of them stopped him in his tracks.

As enraged as he’d ever seen him, Gladio’s hands were in fists so tight, they shook. The vein on his neck was pulsing. His eyes weren’t amber, or their soft earthen brown. They were hellfire and brutality, blood and iron.

He’d never seen her show anything more than mildness, and the storm in her expression was haunting. Her hands, tensed and clawed, hung by her sides, and it was only when she moved them that Cor saw the knife strapped to her thigh.

“You’re being a fucking idiot!”

“As fucking usual!”

“No, this is fucking stupid! Even with some of the shit you’ve pulled!”

Cor had been the one to put them in a ring together. He’d seen Gladio lose himself and almost kill her. He’d seen Rena kill two men for far less than this. He stepped between them and glared at each.

“Enough! Both of you!” he commanded. Interrupting the iron glare that had fixed between them, as real as swords they’d crossed time and time again, Cor turned to burning, amber eyes first. “Gladio, please, just-.”

“Yeah?! Even you didn’t fuck up this bad!”

Gladio tore the door open and stormed out, slamming it hard enough to shake the house where it stood, as though it would lock her in, and himself out. With their words still echoing off the walls, having ripped through and torn at the place like a poltergeist, silence was quick to wrap them and reveal the fallout.

Made speechless, Cor took a deep breath that shook more than he’d intended and turned to her where she seethed, glaring at the door.

“You alright?”

Green eyes snapped to him and struck him again, every tide of a seastorm held in them. She shook her head and shrugged.

“Fine.”

Before she could say anything else and keep a sharp tongue from cutting without reason, Rena turned and stalked away. She passed a small huddle without a word, of a shaking, watery-eyed Iris, a tight-fisted and sickly pale Prompto, and a vacant Talcott. It had been a house full of ghosts and, in bloody pursuit, they’d given it demons.

* * *

It hurt to breathe. Cool air offered a little relief, but it was far from enough. Every last shred of him had burned, and now lay smoking, seizing as it fell away from the flames. Gladio could no longer pinpoint pain. He’d thrown himself from the numbness that had felt so wrong, so insincere, for so heavy a time, into pain whether it came by his hand or another. He’d run till he’d coughed blood, fought till he’d drawn and had his own spilled, taken himself as close to his own death as he could and yet still not been able to die.

Gladio had stopped then. Stared at the sea and cursed it for carrying on when sapphire eyes had closed. His one purpose had always been to go first; into rooms, into danger, into death.

His failure was of such magnitude, it was unfathomable. He was numb to that alone. He could sense it no more than he could sense the air change before rain.

The unseasonable cold that came with too few hours of light, fewer every day, didn’t match the lush green of the leaves, still soft and full in summer colours. They’d have changed soon anyway, but they couldn’t keep up with shortening days. Far further south than Niflheim, Lucis still had its waning daylight though it slipped through their fingers irreversibly, as water in a river.

Dusk and dawn no longer existed. The sun would sail low and red; a single ship on fire in the sky, sinking with each moment. It set the world in sepia for a few hours, until the inky black of moonless nights stretched over the sheets and took more than its share.

With rusty light washing through the leaves with every lift and dip of the breeze, the oak and alders seemed to have already taken their autumn shades. It was incomplete. There were no leaves crunching under his feet, no scent of quiet, sweet death.

All he could smell was blood and sweat.

As he forced himself back through the woods that lay in the centre of fields, the house revealed itself. Years had torn a few chunks of the cob away and bared stone as work bared bones. He’d expected it to hold some silent threat, and he’d tried to remember what day it was to choose who he met on watch. If they were still there, that was. He’d left them behind, they had every right.

Eyes on the ground, the first worn wooden step of the porch had only just appeared in his vision when wood creaked quietly. It was the cracking of relief, a weight being lifted. Gladio froze. Footsteps came from the left and stopped in front of him. Boots. Black.

His last words to Cor flared in his mind, cruel and pointed. He kept his eyes down, even as black boots stepped closer, came down the steps and stood a little away from him.

Expecting every beration, every ounce of lecture and discipline, the reminders that he should’ve known better, Gladio cautiously lifted his gaze.

The blue was steel, but not ice.

It was the same blue that had looked down at him and slowly risen as he’d gotten older, tracking his growth until he’d been level and then exceeded. The same blue had been burning to look at initially, so much so that Gladio could barely look him in the eye. He had that same feeling now, standing across from one that had inspired, taught and trained him; a legend he’d idolised only to discover him to be a man.

It was Cor’s humanity, his ability to be wounded, that made Gladio hold his gaze in sincere apology and honour. Steel was familiar; Gladio had worked with it all his life.

It was a gesture he didn’t think he deserved, but desperately needed. The hug was firm and instinctive, with Cor’s hand clasped to the back of Gladio’s neck as the younger man kept his head bowed. The last time they’d hugged had been after his mother’s funeral, when Clarus couldn’t yet bear the shade of brown in his son’s eyes. When they drew apart, Gladio found it easier to meet his eyes.

“Good to have you back.”

Gladio nodded a little before speaking for the first time in days. He didn’t think he was capable of quiet sounds after those he’d set loose to tear the house. They hadn’t only been deafening, they’d been hard, burning and precise; they’d been bullets. His eyes hit the ground at the memory.

“Yeah… Yeah, I uh…”

Cor shook his head at the weak attempt to explain, and held a gentle expression under his frown. He cocked his head towards the house.

“They’ll want to know you’re back.”

Cautious brown eyes left the ground and met steel before he swallowed, nodded and slipped into the house. When he stood inside, in the quiet, and began to push the door shut, he could hear its slam echoing in his head. He made sure to shut it as quietly as he could, as though apologising to the house itself.

The old, scarred table and its benches were empty. In some way, it was a gift that no-one came running, not even a dog. He could take this at his own pace, though he still wasn’t sure what that was. He’d only ever been taught to match and keep pace; to follow others and step in front when the time came. Gladio looked at the stairs for too long, before he padded through the house, limbs stiffening with every second. He came to hall with three doors and slipped into the one on the left.

Small, dark and cold, the room was empty save for a small, shaken gasp. Before his eyes could adjust, something crashed into his chest and wrapped around him. Among the dust, he could smell apples. Gladio let his hand land hollow and hard on a lean back before smoothing Prompto down.

“Hey, man.”

“Y-you, uh…” Prompto stepped away and tugged at his hair in a vague attempt to put it back into the style it had long since drooped from. “You okay? You… you oughta…”

“Quite the aroma...”

The smooth drawl announced Ignis’ quieter presence. Gladio hadn’t seen him stand since they’d gotten back. It was a small thing, but just big enough to wrap around his heart and tighten. Gladio sniffed and caught scent of his own bloody medley, before nodding.

“Yeah. I, uh…”

Prompto, who had been alternating between a grin far brighter than circumstance and an open mouth with pale brows gathered into a frown. The same thought kept crossing his mind. Ignis’ voice had brought him back into the small, dark room he’d taken to hiding in.

Thinner than Gladio had seen him in years and only steady because of the fine, elegant bones that held him up, it still broke Gladio’s heart when eyes that had seen far more of him than he usually wanted to show couldn’t focus on him. They loosely found him by relying on other senses, but lingered just that little bit too far above Gladio’s head, as if he’d been a greater man.

“No need to explain. I heard everything.”

Gladio’s jaw clenched, more to bite himself than hold anything back. There was nothing clawing at him to escape and be told. If a few days alone, _truly_ alone _,_ had taught him anything, it was that less harm came when he watched his mouth.

Words had long been his favourite thing. An escape route of ink. The paper trail from this life to thousands of others. He’d lived hundreds of lives to try and escape one that had now been ripped from him. Gladio was held together by little more than the ache of so many injuries they blended into one, and a dull weight that lay heavy in his gut.

“Is that your blood, or something else?”

Gladio cleared his throat to push out the hoarseness silence had given him, and quickly glanced down at himself. “It’s uh, it’s mine. Mostly mine.”

“Go and get cleaned up. I believe Monica is on watch at the back of the house, I heard her prayers earlier, but I’m sure she can multitask,” Ignis said gently, barely above a whisper.

She was gone then. She’d done as he’d told her and left.

_Maybe she’s on a hunt._

_Maybe she’s gone._

Frail as a veal calf, ungloved hands reached out carefully. Gladio’s own, hot with throbbing pain, met his and warmed them. As each let a hand clasp with the other, they gathered in a hug. The way Ignis’ ribs shook when he breathed made Gladio’s brows knit. The fine, thin scent that left him was watery and sour, but not as strong as it had been.

Ignis stepped away and found him through sheer calculation, before he swallowed thickly.

“I’ll uh, I’ll go get patched up.”

“Before you fester, yes,” he agreed with a small nod. “And Gladio?”

“Mm?”

“Tread lightly. Iris and Talcott are asleep. They’ve been struggling to do that recently.”

Prompto’s head whipped around to Ignis with a light frown. “Wait, how’d you-?”

Ignis simply pointed a finger to the ceiling and said “Pacing.”

Gladio’s throat tightened. He nodded and backed towards the door, only catching on Prompto when the blond gave him a regretful look. He’d likely been sworn to secrecy, or was too nervous to broach the subject, or simply tell him the two words that would say it all.

_She’s gone._

_Your fault._

_You’re alone._

He slipped from the room and stared at the back door. Monica would be just beyond, soft eyes watching the trees for anything that moved too fast, or too slow, to be innocent. Gladio, in all honesty, didn’t think he could set foot outside and resist the need to track her down.

Instead, he moved silently through the house, fighting muscles that threatened to cramp and and gritting his teeth at the strain the stairs put through him. Each step was yet another towards a different kind of grave, soft and one he always thought he’d leave to someone else. That was the cost of a purpose that no longer existed. He was still bound to him, but that was a back-breaking burden, and he’d allowed his other binding to slip through his fingers and cast them aside.

Once he reached the top of the stairs where, quite literally, the descent had begun, he dared glance at the small end of the hall, where the little door he’d barged through stood closed and silent. He went left and opened another door. Gladio peeked inside.

Fast asleep, Iris was clinging to a half-finished moogle she’d stitched and unpicked relentlessly, never happy with its ending. Frowning deeply as she slept, he was reminded of their strongest shared trait; emotion. Each had learned from the other, and it had seemed that just as Gladio was expected to forgo his emotions to make way for logic, reason, bravery and targeted, refined aggression, Iris had arrived and begun to cry, shout, laugh and fight. He’d envied her for her expression, but knew it was just as damaging as it had been for him; so upset at being angry that it would bring tears and sickness.

Emotion was a knife to be tossed in the hand, caught either by blade or handle, but they’d grown up with swords.

The other small bed was kept restless. Talcott fidgeted relentlessly in his sleep and would hug the pillow until his dreams soured, when he’d push it away. Small and pale, his unconscious mumbles didn’t leave the mouth that was clamped shut, as though he’d be poisoned if he opened it. Gladio hadn’t heard him speak since he’d waved them off at Caem. Too much had happened for someone so young. He needed time.

They all needed time.

Leaving simple innocence behind, Gladio withdrew his head from the room and shut the door silently. It took far too long to lower the latch, but rest was precious even as sleepless nights lengthened.

Gladio took a deep breath and turned towards the small end of the hall he’d darkened with sheer presence and fury, before carefully walking towards it. He turned the latch, jolted by how hard cold iron felt in a warm hand, before he pushed the door open silently.

The bed was made. Tidy. No wrinkles or waves, ghosts of sleep left behind while tired bodies went to work. There was no rucksack in the corner, no boots tucked under the end of the bed. All that was left was absence. Silence.

Gladio had never feared an empty bed, but staring one down chilled him in spite of his bloody aches. He drew breath silently to hide the shaking and stepped into the room.

She’d be fine. He told himself that over and over, repeating it until it became a prayer. He knew she would be, until she wasn’t. That she’d go down teeth-gritted and cursing, stubborn and independent to a fault. She’d rather die alone than half-drag someone else to their death by meeting her own. The thought of her, bloodied and injured as she clawed out her last moments, was just as painful as the idea of her walking back to the shed in Cleigne, only to feed the house and protect them as the days became darker, made him feel sick.

It hurt to swallow. Gladio took another step towards the bed and set his holdall onto the floor without a sound.

She’d seen to his family first. She’d made sure they were safe first. She’d put him and his people first, long before her own and long before herself. It wasn’t out of bitterness to her own blood, she was just doing what she’d always done; what was necessary.

He sat on the end of the bed and let his head fall into his hands. It was too heavy these days. Everything was too heavy; his head for his decisions, his hands for their doings, his heart for its purpose and his soul for new loneliness. It shook in fear of being alone, having known a counterpart only to have the rest of him push it away. Only that which is found can be lost.

With his head slipping further, only held up by the hands that grabbed fistfuls of his hair, he opened exhausted eyes to the floorboards. He followed each scratch and scrape, every scar life had put on the house, before an outlier grabbed his attention. As brown and scuffed and worn as the floor, but not wood. Leather. Boots.

Letting his hands fall away slowly, Gladio was pinned to the bed by the weight in his gut as his eyes flicked upwards, instinctively knowing where to meet hers. He dared to try and read the words in deep green, expecting curses and the simple, quiet words that would be spoken law as soon as they left her mouth.

Rena was watching him. Amber eyes had lost their fire, and stayed a quiet, steady, earthen shade as they hid in dark surroundings. He was covered in blood and grit, stained by recklessness and so tired his hands shook. She’d caught sight of the scratches left by animals, and the slices of daemons, some blackened by dried blood and the healing of abandonment, while others bled fresher.

She leant against the wall to hold herself up. Silent and completely still, save for her breathing, Rena stayed locked on his eyes before they fell away, unable to hold a shared gaze any longer. Though unintended, her own had shown him nothing. Gladio couldn’t tell if that was because she had nothing to say, or if she was keeping her secrets.

His throat was glass; hard and unyielding as he tried to form words with it, careful in case it broke and cut him with his own harshness. A swallow almost drowned the words before he let them out, quiet and tentative as a boat pushed out to sea.

“Thought you’d left.”

It may have been a hoarse ghost of her voice, of the warmth and smoothness she could hold, but it came quiet and without malice, almost soft in its depth.

“You hoped."

She may as well have taken his throat in her hand and crushed it, broken the glass to drive it into his flesh and make him bleed.

She was right.

He’d hoped she’d left. He’d hoped she was not the person he thought, that she was cold and cruel and fleeting, nothing he would miss after a little while. He’d hoped she wasn’t the one, so that he could face losing her.

But hope was not truth. It was the softening of reality, of the future, to make it bearable, and Gladio had already lost enough in the space of three months.

Silent and unable to meet her eyes, her soft philosophy had struck him once again. He kept his gaze on the ground and fought to breathe smoothly. She was still there, and she was still watching him.

“D’you wish you had?” he asked, voice low and shaking, as though cowering in a corner.

Rena was silent, and Gladio’s eyes hit the floor along with his heart.

She said something. It was small, quiet sound, almost broken. Her voice had failed. Gladio looked up and silently damned the heavy heat at the back of his eyes. She’d closed hers and was steadying with a breath. Rena tried again.

“Bath.”

He was silent and careful as he watched. Deep green eyes opened and stayed on the ground as she nodded. Gladio put his hands on the edge of the bed, ready to push himself up to stand. He froze the instant her eyes flicked up to him. The question was ready in his mouth but she’d scattered the words again with one look that was little more than focus. He’d simply forgotten her edge and after being reminded of how sharp it could be.

“You need to get cleaned up. If you don’t, you’ll end up with an infection. I don’t have any antibiotics or potions, and Dustin won’t be back for a month.”

Mouth open, with his apology readied, having gathered itself from the chaos, he closed it again and stood, teeth gritted at the threat of cramp in his muscles. They’d bitten into the bone if only to hold him together. Once he could breathe again, both set their eyes on the floor as he forced himself from the room, and she stayed motionless.

Gladio kept his jaw clenched as he fought every fibre to move and made his way to the bathroom. The small wooden door pushed open and he was met by the scent of steam. The old clawfoot bath, with a huge chip gouged from the rolled top, was already full of clear, hot water. She’d seen him coming.

Leather, soaked by blood and sweat and grafted to his skin where it had made bonds with wounds, was peeled away. His shirt was ruined, torn and frayed into oblivion, and stained with the worst of the world. His back seized while he was stepping out of his trousers, and left him curled in a ball, white-knuckled on the edge of the bath as he clung to the warm ceramic. Once he could breathe, he allowed himself a small curse and forced himself to stand.

The water stung more than he’d thought it would. A quick taste on his fingertip revealed why; salt. Gritting his teeth he sank into the water and let it cut him again. With one shaking breath, he filled his lungs and plunged his head under the surface. Gladio scrubbed as much grit and sweat and blood from his hair as he could, scrubbing at his face and the overgrown stubble that had faded from its once precise lines. His heart was pounding in his head, lungs protesting at the stale air, before he pulled his head from the water and breathed. The water was a dark, rusted brown, but he didn’t feel any cleaner. Even the final smidge of a bar of soap couldn’t wash it from him.

He’d abandoned them. He’d left them behind in nothing more than a flight of temper and a break in resolve. He’d been selfish and disloyal. He’d shirked duty given by blood and bond.

He’d been everything he was trained not to be.

Hair dripping, he sat in water that came up to his waist, and listened to the waning rhythm of water falling from his hair and chin. It was the echo of a single heartbeat, and Gladio had been far too alone in the past few days. It made him ache and watch the ripples his breath made on the surface, how easy it was to cause an effect. Alone in the silence, he was what he’d been in each rare but quiet moment in the last few days.

Lonely.

Cold and empty, it circled around him and squeezed him with the emptiness until his chest caved. Unwilling to be in that crushing embrace any longer, he stepped out and wrapped the stretch of thicker linen that would serve as a towel around his waist. Even when he drained the water, he had to wash the silt, tiny stones and shreds of fabric that had clung to him away. He picked his ruined clothes from the floor when his eyes caught on something. Jeans. When he held them up by the waist, they revealed themselves to be his and dropped a clean pair of boxers. Indigo washed, they’d been the pair he’d left at the bottom of his bag, too thick to wear in Accordo, or even Lucis during high summer.

Gladio dressed and slipped from the room and back into the small bedroom at the end of the hall. When he shut the door behind him, something landed on the bed. Spread out in two small arcs with a space between, like partial ripples on a pond, were supplies. Bandages, gauze, cotton swabs, bottles of alcohol and salves, rinses, even the tiny black case that meant this was bad. He could feel the fresh blood on his back, seeping from a wound high on his shoulders.

“Any on the legs?”

Rena stood alongside the bed and didn’t turn around when she spoke. He tried to remember the new marks on him. He’d been put through so many changes. He wasn’t sure _he_ was unchanged. In fact, he was sure that he was not the same.

“No. No, they’re… They’re fine.”

“Good,” she said quietly, turning around to pluck a bottle from the bed and pour a little into her hand.

The sweet, burning scent of alcohol came to him, when he wished for something much softer. Warm. She’d fix him first, and Gladio knew better than to protest. Rena gestured loosely to the foot of the bed.

Gladio left his ruined clothes in a small pile at the floor by the bed and sat down. Even though the mattress was firm, hard under the new straw that had been added to give it softness and make it quiet, he could feel her move on it. In the dim blue of the room, there came a striking sound and the low fizz of a candle wick taking flame. He cast a large shadow for a man who felt so small.

He heard the breathed sigh that called him reckless without ever saying a word.

She started by cleaning the biggest wound. Fresh and still bleeding, it stretched across his shoulders. The sting of cool liquid on flesh made hot in pursuit to heal made him grit his teeth. That burning numbed him enough that he didn’t feel the needle until she’d made enough stitches to pull the skin taught to heal.

Each time she pushed that hooked steel into his skin, the weight in her gut became heavier. The beads of blood that pushed out around fresh wounds, and she had never minded blood, made an empty stomach flip. In truth, the stitches were well done and fine, but to her they seemed just another failed attempt to hold him together.

His breathing was the best way to gauge him. It stopped when he was in pain, and was steady otherwise. The sheer heat throbbing from muscles and joints made him seem feverish. His skin was torn in too many places to work out the knots he’d put in himself without splitting him open.

A medley of scratches, older and half-healed was gathered around his waist in sharp groups of three. She washed them as best she could, cut the black leather that had grafted into his being away, and dressed the hot wounds with the last of the clean moss, before she tapped on his elbows. Gladio held his arms up while she tended those gathered on his front and then wrapped him, hips to chest, in soft, clean bandage to hold them all in place.

The graze on his arm was the first to draw sound from him. He quietly hissed a breath when she started to work cold salve over the broken skin. Her fingers paused. Rena watched him keep his eyes down and gave him a moment before she finished spreading salve and began to wrap the wound that could become infected far too easily for her liking. Just below the bulk of his shoulder, and on his upper arm, white looked far too stark against black and tan.

“I’m sorry.”

She stopped. Green eyes fixed on his, but dropped away before he could turn and catch her gaze. He kept looking at her, she could feel it, as he spoke again.

“Rena, really, I’m-.”

“I know," she said quietly.

Nodding, she finished the last few winds around his arm and tied the ends before tucking them away. He opened his mouth again, and she turned away, busy packing up what was left of already limited supplies. It had done nothing to lift the weight that sat in his gut and dug its claws in. He scrambled to find words, sifting them from a mind like muddy water. He was still trying when she put her hand on the door latch.

It left him weak and half formed. It was the same question she’d asked him. “Where…?”

“I’m on watch.” With no real tone in her voice, and her face hidden away, all he could hear was how quiet she was. Rena stepped out of the room and left him, all alone.

He’d been fighting an exhausted body for days, and had little better to do than find the words to fix this. Gladio shuffled up in the cold, empty bed and lay flat on his back, head heavy in a feather pillow beaten and frayed by time, until its softness was nothing more than tiredness. The candle she’d left on a bedside burned gently, occasionally fizzing with grain in the wick. He watched it flicker over the walls and tried, until sleep took him from the world.

When he woke up, the room was still a silent battle of dim blue against fading yellow. His head had fallen to the side, and the first thing he saw was the candle. It was shorter than he remembered. Much shorter. There was only an inch left, and it still burned. Light was just another of the things that was proving so precious, and yet he’d taken it for granted.

Just beyond the candle was a mug that hadn’t been there before. It was steaming with soft, clean scent. Mint. For a moment, it was the most comforting scent in the world. It was the perfume of early kisses, and it made him ache.

Something moved on his left, he could hear fabric shifting. Gladio turned his head.

Sitting on the side of the bed as she shouldered from the flannel, Rena balled the shirt up and set it on the floor before slipping her hands under the grey tank top, ripped at an edge and crinkled with wear, and unfastening her bra. She pulled the garment out from the front and left it by the flannel.

It made Gladio’s chest cave when she let her hair down, pushing it from the bun and letting it fall down her back in a soft mess. Still half asleep, he reached out just as she reached aside to pick up her own mug of mint tea.

His fingertips had barely brushed her hip when she flinched. It made him wince. While drawing his hand back to himself, Gladio held his breath to turn onto his side, eyes already heating with the shame of it and forced shut, willing his lashes to catch the tears before they could fall.

He’d scared her. That alone was enough. However, Gladio had scared her enough to shatter months of painstaking progress. A year before, he’d been the one to pin her down and rough her up, ready to scare any confession out of her, all in the name of duty. Now, he dreaded to think what he’d do to anyone that tried to do the same to her.

Rena clenched her jaw at her own unwarranted, jumpy reaction to an unexpected gesture and downed the last of the tea. It sat heavy in an empty stomach, enough to stop her from needing to eat when there were other mouths to feed, and other bodies with far less to lose. Temples pounding and eyes dry from too many hours staring at the darkness in case it offered warning, Rena shook her head and lay down on her side.

She couldn’t have slept if she’d tried. She hadn’t in days. Little more than an hour or two before she’d jolt awake and stay that way until her next watch. Despite the heaviness settled into every exhausted fibre of her, her head was too loud to let her rest.

After a while, the candle fizzled out. She was awake to see light, the soft yellow of summer, fade and die under the wash of a single black wave that would not draw back. All it did was make her feel cold, even as she’d kept her jeans on.

Rena had no real intention of sleeping. If she did, it felt like wasted time. But so did lying in the dark. So did watches, and hunts in what little daylight was left. Whatever wasn’t confused by the changing day was consumed by daemons at night, or made so skittish there was no chance of getting anywhere near them. Everything felt wasted, as though the harvest had been cut too soon, before the grain had thickened, or after rain had spoiled the field. They were picking rotten grapes and trying to make the wine sweet.

Linen shifted behind her. She stayed perfectly still and silenced the sigh as nothing more than a long breath. Then she damned herself, and made her own shuffle back, closer to the centre of the bed.

Call answered, Gladio rolled his shoulders and moved back again, inching closer until he felt her hair, soft but electric, brush against his shoulder. He could’ve fallen into that sensation alone.

When shoulders hot with pain met her own, her brows knitted. Both held tense for a moment before letting themselves relax against each other, held up by nothing more than presence. They lined up; hip to hip, spines parallel and shoulders matched. They fell into synchrony out of instinct and the need to be so close they were practically the same being, the same strength, just until they could be their own again.

He moved. She felt him turn onto his stomach, then his other side. With his chest at her back, she could have sunk back into him and let herself be lost. Found. She didn’t care, as long as he was there. Something kept her still as a heavy arm wrapped around her waist, until his hand had tucked under her side. Breathing together and taking the blended scents, silence was more than enough.

At no protest, neither spoken nor shown, no seizing up and warding him off, Gladio let himself hide behind her. Held flush to him and already smoothed down by it, as though she’d had her hackles raised for weeks only to realise they could be relaxed at times, she didn’t want her world to be anything but the scent, warmth and feeling of him. Gladio’s forehead pressed to her shoulder before he nuzzled in and hid in her hair, head resting in the crook of her neck. Her hand nudged to find the one he’d hidden under her side and twined her fingers over his.

Held far closer than he’d ever hold a metal shield, she was only one that would ever hear it. His breath shook. That was enough to make everything stop, her lungs, her mind, the gentle thumb that had been stroking his knuckle. Nothing moved except her own steady heartbeat, as his raced against her back.

The heavy sniff came next, followed by another trembling breath. Gladio silenced himself and turned further into her hair, trying to hide from everything.

But it was right there. Laid bare and he couldn’t run from it any more. Gladio felt as though his spine had been ripped out; that single pillar that made him was gone. Obliterated. His entire life, each and every day, had one focus, and every step taken, every word said, was to better himself, then Noctis, so that they could achieve that goal; stay alive, keep the peace, ensure the lines.

The harshness of his own words had forced him to make himself scarce on the train. The regret had been immediate. He’d stormed off, kept a hard expression that made any who stood in his way move aside, until he’d found an empty carriage and let the tears fall. Even then, he’d strangled them. Sniffed and blinked them away until all that was left was a redness to his eyes that had been standard after so many sleepless nights.

He’d thought of how she’d have responded, to his anger on the train and then the bitter words that had just kept coming, leaving his mouth as swift, sharp shadows. Ignis’ lecture had been enough to knock him back; a voice of reason from a neutral standpoint was one he’d sorely missed.

She’d have done the same. Shaken her head, frowned, even gotten in his way when he started taking up heat. Let them fight it out, at first, in the hope that the waters would calm. She wouldn’t have let it continue as long as Ignis had. Her own words, reminders of self-discipline and control would have been given, whether it was to all of them, or just him. But Ignis had done the trick, he’d been enough.

And then, after all they’d been through, every loss and life stolen from them, even their own futures, he’d turned on her.

The sound he strangled in his throat and the wetness that fell warm on her neck from under gathered brows was fear itself, seeping into her. Rena didn’t know what to do; she never did. Comfort had never come naturally. She could hear him cracking, like the rough edges of broken glass grating against each other. It made the blood pound in her head and set raw panic through her.

In a movement so fast it made Gladio freeze and silence himself once again, with a tiny sound that still wasn’t weak enough to express himself, Rena flipped onto her other side and wrapped around him. The flooded brown eyes that had flown wide squeezed shut and let saltwater flow. Rena wound her fingers into his hair and wrapped an arm around him, careful of the wounds. His own that had been around her waist remained hooked and only tightened as the other fisted in the sheets and tried to hold reality to him.

Everything was slipping away. Did anything matter anymore? He cursed himself for such a question. Iris. Ignis. Cor. Prompto. Talcott. Rena.

Only one was ever witness to his landslides, when everything fell apart. He’d been close before, but never known a reckoning like this. He was the first of his kind to fail and on such a wretched magnitude, he could hear the screams of the dying, feel the crops wilt as the sun failed. Gladio was the first to be frozen by that darkness, because he alone had allowed it to happen. As if that wasn’t enough, he’d lost the single pillar that had defined his entire existence.

He was nothing. He was lost. He was petrified.

He was shaking in her arms, muffling sobs against the base of her throat that made her race to find words. Consolation. Anything. His entire being fell away, sloughed by each and every cry until they bordered on screams, more excruciating than he’d ever known, or she’d ever heard from anyone.

The best she could do was hold him while he fell apart, and catch the pieces. It made her own heart dash to catch up with his, draw level and slow him down. It took far more bravery to speak than she’d ever needed before.

“Gladio…”

The soft whisper of his own name made it torturous. With one arm cradling his head, lips brushing against his temple, Rena found his other hand and wound their fingers, as though taking root in him would keep him together. It was a weak attempt, but she didn’t know what to do; ever capable, and suddenly made helpless.

His words were thick, muffled, and watery.

“I’m- I’m sorry…” he choked against her skin.

“I know, I know. Me too. I’m sorry too, alright?” she breathed, in fear a louder sound would startle him and make him smash like a dropped vase. “I’m so sorry…”

He cried until he couldn’t breathe. Until his head was pounding and his throat was so raw he could taste blood. In that darkest of places, when he felt sleep would be so final it would be death itself, the last words Gladio could gasp out were weak and final.

“He’s gone.”

Hushed apologies, assurances and the words they’d called their own were given, over and over until he caught the rope she was trying to throw him, were given in whispers until Gladio finally faded out and fell into the black oblivion of sleep. Rena went with him, and held him still so that he could rest, safe and warm. Gods knew he didn’t have any strength of any kind left, except her.

Something harsh but quiet broke the peace. Then something louder. Hard. Her hearing picked up mid-sentence.

“-up… C’mon, you gotta get up! Please!”

The desperate whispers and a small hand on her shoulder fully woke Rena with a start. Untangling herself from Gladio as he lay heavy was enough to rouse him.

“What? What the f-?”

Talcott was staring at her, trembling as he shook her awake.

“You-you gotta come see! Downstairs… It...It was downstairs...C-Cor… He-.”

“He what?” Gladio croaked, thick brows drawn into a frown as he squinted through the darkness at the boy. “Talcott, what-?”

“Th-they- they came with guns! With _guns!_ ”

It was little more than a breath shaken into weak words ending with a squeak, but it was enough. Both shot from the bed, Gladio already at the door, when Rena stopped, crouched down to be level with Talcott as he gulped air. She held him by the shoulders and locked eyes with him.

“Go back to bed- you remember that box I told you about?”

“Uh-huh!"

“Good. Go hide in there, alright? Don’t come out, we’ll come get you when they’re gone.”

He was trembling, so fast and rough it was as though he’d been shocked, or rattled by some puppetmaster. A warm hand on his cheek slowed him down and made him look at her.

“Go and hide, Talcott. We’ll make them go away, alright?”

The boy nodded, small hands clinging to her wrist. “Y-you promise?”

“I promise,” she said, without hesitation.

Rena stood and swept her belt from the ground, half tearing the knife from it as he took a few shaky steps away from her. He’d only just made it to the door when his legs failed him and he dropped to the floor. Gladio caught him before he could land with a heavy thud. He gathered the small boy up into his arms and held him as Rena opened the door, peeked down the hall and tried to make sense of the dark.

He followed when she darted out, across the hall until she opened a door and slipped inside. Rena pulled the mattress on Talcott’s bed back, then a broad plank of seemingly smooth wood, littered with fallen straw. A pillow was already inside, and was barely clutched by the unconscious Talcott when Gladio set him down, and she hid him. He’d only just stepped back out of the room when his pounding heart was made to beat harder.

“Gladdy…?”

“Iris, listen, you need to hide, alright?”

“But that was-.”

“I know, but there’s someone downstairs. Please, just-.”

“I- uh- o-okay…” she trailed off, sounding as lost and frail as an unready fledgeling.

He heard a quick shuffle of fabric before Rena slipped from the room and closed the door silently behind her. Pressed flush against the wall, the two shared a glance before edging down the stairs, crouched low and peeking through the banister.

Four. Armed with assault rifles, their steel armour gave away the slightest movements, too fluid and flexible to be magitek. Nif soldiers.

They had Cor surrounded, as he stood perfectly still, empty hands up by his shoulders and blood pouring from his temple. It was a quick look shared between himself and the descendants making their way down the stairs, no more than an instant, but it was enough.

Three more stormed through. They dragged Monica by her hair and shoved her into a corner before they held their rifles up, sights inches from her face and kept their aim.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Gladio nudged her side and gave the door a pointed look. He drew his plan on the outer side of her thigh. Four fingertips in a square; the house. A loop to the left side; he’d come through the back door. A squeeze to her knee; wait.

There could be more outside. Seven was not a full squad-- not by Imperial standards. She shook her head. Gladio’s frown was deep, but not angry. He buried a hand in her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple before taking the final step from the stairs.

He only took one on the ground floor of the house before a gun was pressed to the back of his neck. Gladio froze.

She didn’t think.

Rena lunged forwards, forced the soldier against the wall while bullets sprayed the floor, and drove her knife through a slit in his helmet. His scream cut the house.

Another stepped towards her, gun raised. Gladio threw him aside. Three more soldiers grappled him, but were fended off without bloodshed. One slipped behind him in the fray and stepped between Rena and the soldier now slumped on the floor, blood finally staining imperial white.

Gladio heard the punishing strike of the butt of the rifle against her cheek. Then the spit, the curse, and saw her blood on the floor.

The press of her back against his own, level, strong and tense, let him breathe again. He could feel her shoulders take boxing stance, and smell the blood dripping from her knife. Unarmed, he forced his hand into the armiger, through cold, still waters, and found the handle of his sword.

He stopped. 

She was there too. He could feel her searching out the sword and shield, hand lingering between the two to take whichever would be best.

Someone else was there. It came from left, low and behind him. Prompto pulled his gun from the armiger, but he didn’t hear any shots. Ignis was protected.

Back to back and surrounded, in a room with fourteen imperial soldiers, staring down the barrels of rifles, a silence fell that none of them had ever known before.

It was so still that the only moving part they could feel was the hammering of hearts against their backs.

So silent that the only sound was the ticking of Cor’s watch, each another nameless marker in the countdown.

Fourteen rifles.

Eight eyes.

Three swords.

_Three._

Two children.

_Two._

One last sunset.

_One._  

No moon.

_Zero._

_Tick._

_Tick._

_Tick._


	24. Circumstance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six years have passed in the darkness, and the world is far from anything it's ever been. Struggling to scrape a living in Lestallum, a familiar presence is driven by the need to help others and little else, steering them towards the grave, or away from it.

In the borderlands of consciousness, his ears were the first to guide him back into the world. One was fizzing and hot, dulling sound with wet resistance while the other let him hear. His own breath pushing through a dry throat to rattle dust across the floor, only to bring it back. The quiet ticking of an old watch that just refused to stop.

Prompto uncurled from the tight ball he’d slept in and stretched out, legs long and arms straight in front of him.

He touched something cold. Soft. Still.

Bleary eyes cracked, then flew open. He scrambled back across the floor, hands slipping on the dust and grit, until a wall hit him square at bony peaks of his shoulder blades with bruising stubbornness.

Even across a dark room, those eyes were bulged wildly enough to ward him off. Unblinking, empty and dull, he tore his focus away from them and fixed on a dark corner. They haunted him still, those dead eyes burned into his own.

Knees up at his chest, Prompto tore his hands through his hair and growled in his throat at the tugs. He blew on his fingers to warm them up, before pulling the watch from the palm of his glove. The gold frame was tarnished around a pearl face. His fingertip traced the circle, finding its dents, the bruises time had given it, and scrapes that roughened the warm, smooth metal. Even in the dark, it reflected just enough light that it almost looked like the end. It was an element of the past. Of things they’d once known, moments they’d treasured, and now sorely missed. The pale sliver of golden light that held close to the watch almost looked like a sunset.

It kept ticking, but the light hadn’t changed for years now. .

Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, Prompto tucked the watch back into his glove. He gave the body another look, cautiously watching the limbs as though they’d move. Smooth, pale and so much cleaner than his own, the skin was stretched taut over a bony form. Naked save for a ragged linen wrap around the hips, the body frozen in death was staring at him.

Prompto sniffed, wiped the end of his nose against his glove, and used to wall to help himself stand. His right leg was heavy and sparking, circulation lost by sleeping on a hard concrete floor, long stripped of its floorboards. There was no point in opening the shuttered window; it would only let in noise, smells, and colder air. He took a deep breath, limped on a dead leg that was yet to wake, and stood over the body, worn boots either side of its head.

In all truth, he couldn’t tell which it had been, but they had been starving, sickly and digging their claws into life as it tried to throw them off.

Life always wins for one simple reason; it is death.

Prompto moved the dark bandana from the base of his throat up to cover his nose and mouth. He crouched low, hooked his arms under those of the body and dragged the limbs, so thin around the bone they rattled, from the room. When the doorknob punched him in the hip, Prompto reached back and turned it until the quiet click and creak let it swing open.

Each shift as he stepped back and pulled the body across the ground put him into a rhythm, yet another tick and tock, another pulse that marked the passing of time that never seemed to change.

A hacking cough, low, wet and barely human anymore, interrupted.

Pale brows gathered, Prompto set the body down and stepped over it. He pushed the dark door that had been next to his own open and peeked inside.

Exactly where he’d left him, after he’d collapsed in the hallway once again, hair that used to be much darker was slick with sweat as it clung to the back of his neck. He could hear nails scrape the grizzled stubble thickly coating a strong jaw. Cor turned over and gathered the sheets up above his shoulders, just as he fought the coughing fit off. When the broad chest began to move again with each breath drawn, Prompto bit the inside of his lip and pulled his head from the room before he shut the door as quietly as he could.

Prompto winced each time dead legs landed on a step until he’d dragged the body to the bottom of the stairs, turned and hauled it from the building.

Cobbled streets that didn’t smell as they used to were damp under a drizzled rain. It was the small type that soaked him slowly, then all at once. It kicked the scent of steam and fresh herbs into the gutter and left him with the current medley of the new Lestallum; smoke, dust and the sour smell of sickness. It seeped from every slick stone of the place, dry for so long only for it to rain and make the town greasy.

Water spattered onto the ground when he threw the dark spruce canvas half-off the rusted wheelbarrow. Prompto lay the body on its side, tucked the stiff legs and arms in, before picking them up with a muted grunt and placing them in the barrow. A fleck of rust fell from the side. It landed stark and dirty on clean skin, yet another thing that had been ruined by the simple act of existing.

In the dark of that alleyway, he pulled the sodden material over his crumpled cargo and picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow. Trying to ignore the bumps of the cobbles, he set off through narrow streets. The buildings loomed over him. Everything was dark and dripping.

Shafts of pale yellow light were glimpsed ahead, as fleeting as ghosts as they passed between wrought alleys. He met a crossroad. Something soft, warm and spiced wafted right under his nose. Stopped in his tracks, Prompto took another deep draw of the torturous scent and turned his head to follow it.

On his right, the alley opened up to a broader street. Dim, rusted light seeped from it, but not far enough to reach him in the dark recesses. When a silhouette stepped aside, he saw it. A blackened grill over a low, smoking fire, and the small chunks of meat that dripped into the flames. A fall of grease from one of them made the fire hiss, and Prompto’s mouth water. The rats were just beginning to crisp at their coarser edges, and made a remarkably rich meat in lean times. Gods knew that most bigger things had long since died out.

No day meant no sun. No plants. No herbivores, predators, or anything that couldn’t eek its living out of the corner of rooms and drainpipes, or be valuable enough to be fed. The food chain had been obliterated from the bottom up, felled like a tree.

Being _able_ to get food was one thing. Actually _obtaining_ it was another matter entirely.

Prompto only pulled his eyes away when his stomach let out a twisted, wrought sound that was little more than an echo of the hunger clawing at him. He swallowed through a dry mouth. With little other option in a world with no rules, Prompto carried on through his little trail between the bones of the city.

He’d wheeled out of the alleys and met the front of the town. He remembered how it had looked years ago. Palm trees and lush flowers, overlooking a green valley that led all the way to the meteor. Lestallum had been a place of music and trade, the bustling new heart of Cleigne, where the Old Town had been allowed to retire in the south. The beginnings of Taelpar Crag had looked less like a wound then.

Now, it was a sinking abyss; the bared teeth of a dog, waiting to snap them up and swallow them whole. The palms had long been cut down and burned to keep people warm, and the flowers hadn’t made it into that first winter. Lestallum was a conflicting place. Potential was hidden under the surface. What little power EXENERIS could eek, when they weren’t throttled by broken lines and lacking parts or engineers, was diverted to the makeshift hospital; little more than a triage that gave back as many bodies as it was given, and to the vaults.

Prompto had never been in the vaults. He’d heard words between others, hushed and bitter, that claimed they were storerooms of rations and supplies, massive underground greenhouses with more than Duscae had ever given, even in its richer years.

At least that was what they _said._

He followed the cobbles east. Each time he passed yet another alley that let the world into the town, or, more recently, let the town bleed out into the world, he kept his eyes forward and tried not to hear what played out in each snapshot, illuminated by the slivers of yellow light that concentrated at the market-turned-triage. His mind couldn’t help but wander.

_To think the reddest thing there used to be the peppers. Roses. Old place used to smell like spices. Cherry cola and curries with-._

His mind was interrupted by a particularly high whine from his stomach; yet one more plead to be given something, _anything._

But he had nothing. Nothing but a job to do, and a payday that never came around fast enough. In some ways, the world hadn’t changed a bit.

Prompto carried on, walking in the dark as narrow light showed the new world in snapshots. He wasn’t sure they were changes at all. Perhaps it was as simple as a filter being removed. It was as though the focus of the world had turned been so severely heightened, it was grainy and rough. They were all things that had been in the world before, except now they were far closer to the lives led en masse.

They played out like scenes in a film, as though he were flicking channels in the hope of finding something lighter. A man staggered down an alley, shoulder scraping the wall as he wiped blood from his nose, onto a shirt already stained with contraband. _Probably gonna feel that when he wakes up._ A pair that had parted, cheeks still ruddy from the rush, as a few small slips of paper were given as payment. _People need to eat, after all._ A single figure turning away from a new heap on the ground, blood still dripping from their hands. _Probably better that way._

Dreading the last alley and whatever horror it could offer his peripheral, Prompto had to pick a pace that let him move the wheelbarrow quietly over cobbled ground, whilst also moving fast enough to be out of harm's way, wherever that ended. He set his eyes on the perfectly clean hand that shook as he moved, as though it was one final attempt to abstain from the grave.

“Well, hey there!”

Prompto jolted, nearly throwing his wheelbarrow, before the fizzing wave of adrenaline was smoothed over by realisation. Recognition. He let out a sigh and shook his head.

A grin was held back by a bitten lip. An upward jut of his chin flashed the small tattoo under his small jaw that looked exactly like a songbird’s footprint. Ferrin shook the water from shaggy auburn hair that the darkness dyed brown, and laughed brightly at him.

“Gotcha.”

“C’mon man, quit messing around,” Prompto’s smile reached his eyes. He pushed gently at the shoulder that was only an inch or so higher than his own.

“Hey, you were the one lookin’ down! Literally! That poor bastard’s going in the ground, not you,” he chirped, picking up the handles of his own barrow. He pointed his thumb at himself, before staring at the large heap straining the rusted metal. “And _this_ poor bastard got a big one.”

“Lucky guy,” Prompto cocked his head, watching as Ferrin nudged his own bandana, a pale blue stained by grease and gods knew what else, over a pale nose. He wondered if he’d ever had freckles. It had been a long time since the sun had kissed and coloured any of them.

Ferrin held a deadpan expression, but there was a bright glint in his eye. “Not really. Look at him, he’s dead. All the ration cards he could get, and what good did it do him, eh?”

Prompto just shook his head and fought a smile at the cheerful tune Ferrin whistled as he walked alongside him. The two set off, heading to edge of town and the small group of others, with their cargo. From a distance, they looked like bait in a trap; a gaggle of exhausted, bony people, unarmed and with their hands full. For all they varied in size and shape, colour and texture, there was a common theme they all wore, as though it was a uniform. Bandanas covered from the nose down, hands were thickly gloved, and eyes held in dark sockets.

Others wore belts with tiny, secure bags. Prompto fixed on one, and knew its contents through instinct. Jacketed lead was an excellent metaphor; it was cloaked poisoning, a madness waiting to explode. The powder inside would be peppery and hot, as sparking as sudden as euphoria, with all the bloody reality of its target. Bullets held a lustrous appeal, one that was tempting enough for Prompto to keep his hands from the armiger.

Things that felt that good were seldom deserved. Those guns… He could feel their every detail under fingertips that hadn’t been so calloused back then. Every swirl, each smooth plane and cold, hard detail had been as compliant and warm as a satisfied partner. All it took was one shot to bring them to life; one quick taste of death, and they became his. Gunpowder was the scent of ecstasy, and Prompto missed the days when the price hadn’t seemed so steep.

Fixated on the rifle held in the hunter’s hands, he only flinched out of his longings when Ferrin nudged his elbow.

“C’mon. Stay still long enough, you’ll end up in one of those,” he smiled brightly, letting his eyes land on the wheelbarrow for a moment. “Let’s go put ‘em away.”

Prompto hummed a quick agreement before he fell into the single rope that followed its rhythm; carter, cargo, still, moving, dead, not dead.

Yet.

When they reached the sight, they stayed together until they feathered out, like tree branches, until they were shaken leaves allowed to fall on the smooth side of the hill. Cleared of trees and dark, it was a place defined by texture. Grassless ground was soaked as it lay in raised patches, some bigger than others. Some were simply rough and not raised, the bodies too small to have a marked presence in the world. They hadn’t been alive long enough to make any great difference, except to those who knew they were there.

No one ever made jokes when they buried a child, not that there were many left to bury anyway.

Prompto found a new, smooth spot, and pulled his shovel from the side of the wheelbarrow. The first slice of steel through wet, grainy earth, was made fast and strong. He tried not to listen to the sticky sound of soaked earth being torn from itself and set aside.

All he had to do was dig.

* * *

Prompto rubbed at his ear and winced each time the pulse in his own head was still watery when he held his palm over the hot flesh. He ran his hand through his hair and caught the scent. Bitter, thick and unpleasant, even just a hint of it was enough to tell him. Yet another ear infection. It seemed the good health of youth was leaving him already.

In the years that had felt like little more than a pause, as though he’d woken from a nightmare and the darkness of the small hours had stretched on and on, there were so many changes in the world, he’d often failed to notice them in himself.

They were small things, but noticeable nonetheless when he’d arrived in Lestallum little over two months before and been presented with the obligatory cold shower and inspection. Of course, he’d paid the guard off. _Just a tattoo, we all had ones like it in my neighbourhood,_ he’d said. The man had grunted and let it pass. It was a weak semblance of control, to make it seem as though things would be fine once within the town limits.

Lestallum was much a corpse waiting to happen as its every inhabitant.

He’d shaven as soon as he’d had the opportunity. The straggly beard, little more than an inch long, combined with eyes older than he remembered them and skin paled from years in the dark had made him far too similar to his origins, and made the ink on his wrist so much starker. Only once he’d been defined by those lines did he feel their weight.

Sitting on soaked gravel outside the supervisors ‘office’ – though it was little more than a shed with a corrugated tin roof and a single lightbulb dangling like a reluctant drop of sunlight inside - Prompto huffed a bitter laugh at the thought.

All those years he’d spent in the sun, taking photographs at any and all hours, capturing each nuance of light and distance, had been halcyon. They had their own struggles, mainly in the beginning and nearer the end. It had taken a week for the last battery in his camera to die, and for those days to fade forever.

Now, it seemed, they were in the darkroom of life and the photographer was only just beginning to see each jagged detail of the existence wrung by foul substance and years in the dark. His eyes had adjusted and now he could see. Life had always been this way, though it used to hide in the shadows, in dark alleys and basements, late-night crime shows and games he used to play and profess to love. It used to be subtle, temporary, and avoidable.

Not anymore.

The thin seam of dim yellow light seeping from the supervisors office broadened with a creak and then became thin again. Torn boots crunched onto the gravel before kicking it away with a curse.

Little over six foot, he was by no means a small man. Dark hair the years had dyed black and a scruffy short beard under ruddy cheeks, pale blue eyes shone as his brightest colour. The grip kept on the shovel by meaty hands didn’t loosen.

“Alright Lutz, calm down,” Ferrin said, words blunted by the lips busy holding cigarette. The sharp scratch of the lighter was followed by a few puffs as Lutz spoke.

“He’s gotta be shittin’ me! It’s been three weeks!”

Ferrin nodded, blasé, as he took a longer draw of the tiny, wrinkled cigarette, pale white until it glowed orange at the end. The sour puff that left him as he replied was one Prompto could feel, as though it were hands coursing over his cheeks, neck, chest. Each and every sin was seduction, he knew. Anything else quantified as sin was just lust with a different target; money, food, rest, respect, fear, something or someone else.

“I know, and I’ve never seen a case of blue balls like yours on any man, living or dead, but you go around breaking noses and you sure as shit ain’t gonna get paid,” he chuckled.

Ferrin barely glanced at Prompto before offering him the cigarette. When the gloved fingers didn’t take it, the redhead turned and gave a warm smile to cosmic blue eyes that had long seemed like stars faded from being watched too much.

“Cheer up. There’s always Mutton Monday’s.”

Prompto half-smiled as he rested his forearms on his knees, as his eyes peered up from underneath eyebrows the years had made wolfish.

“It’s… not Monday?” Prompto said, pinched brows raised together. Ferrin snorted and took another draw of the cigarette.

“Does anybody know what day of the godsdamn week it is anymore?” He took another contemplative puff before he let his revelation out with a ghost of thick smoke and an impassive expression. “Anybody know what _day_ is anymore?”

Prompto chewed at the split in his lip and shrugged. He bit hard enough to split it again when the knotted muscles of his shoulders clawed at the bone. Tasting metal and cold to his thighs, Prompto sprung from the soaked ground. He spread his arms to keep his balance as the pain at the right side of his head became less like a push, more like a punch.

“What I’m saying is, it _could_ be Sunday, or it could be Tuesday. Either way, got a long way to go before we get the mystery meat special-.”

“Still need to get paid,” Lutz coughed, beating the crackling sound from his chest with one hairy fist.

“ _And_ we still need to get paid so loverboy here can get his dick sucked-.”

“Hey! She’s a-.”

“ _Fine and reputable woman caught in an unfortunate position_ , aren’t they all, big guy? Aren’t they all?” He looked off into the darkness as he slung an arm around Lutz’s heavy shoulders. His dreamy expression fell to a frown sharp with curiosity before he turned to look at the bigger man. “How _do_ you get a peg that square into a hole that round?”

“You fuckin’-!”

“Knock it off, boys.”

Small and impish in her features, Clara’s grey eyes were already bored. Dressed in the same rags and shades as the rest of them, all brown and grey and black, all dark and stained, she was barely up to Prompto’s chin. As she walked between the three, shovel over her narrow shoulders and wrists holding it there, she shot them a wink and clicked her tongue before she turned and walked off.

“As I was saying, don’t know how long it is till we get paid. Once we do, we get fed, fucked and go the bed, _but_ until then…”

Ferrin offered the cigarette once more. Prompto’s hands were long past the stage of shaking when he reached out to take it and drew a warm, sour breath. It may not have filled his stomach, but it filled his lungs, and the taste was enough to put him off eating for the next few hours. Long enough to get back to town, back to the tiny two rooms he barely called his own, and back to a few short hours of sleep before it started all over again.

A sharp whistle cut the peace softened by smoke.

“C’mon! Pick up time, unless you don’t want paid.”

Lutz spat onto the ground as Ferrin refused the last draw of the cigarette and Prompto took it.

“I hate that guy.”

The redhead snorted and gave Lutz a heavy pat on the back. “Yep… but your gal loves him.”

Lutz had barely growled before Ferrin picked up his wheelbarrow and began to dance away. He yelled over his shoulder as the remaining two followed.

“He’s done wonders for her sleep schedule! Hell, with that much beauty sleep, she might put her prices up!”

“FERRIN!”

“You better hope you’re getting paid, big man!”

“I’LL GET PAID ONCE I’VE BURIED YOU, YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

The bubbling laugh may have only acted to infuriate Lutz, but it had Prompto puffing out smoke in a laugh as he tilted his head down and stamped the tiny remnant of the cigarette into cold, wet gravel.

* * *

Head throbbing, he opened bleary eyes to the damp-stained ceiling and the patch of mould he’d mistaken for a crowd of spiders more than once, then let his gaze fall back down. The wrist in his hand was cold. Smooth. Still.

Sometimes Prompto thought he could feel a pulse, sometimes swore, but it only took a moment for logic to dash whatever sparkling theory he’d formulated and give him a simple, unquestionable conclusion.

It was his own pulse bouncing back.

As he carried on with his standard task, he went through the motions. Without changing light, the only thing that marked the passing of time was activity. His rhythm was ingrained already; wake, cart, dig, drop, cover, dig, drop, cover, pick up, cart, clean, sleep, wake… On and on until even that blended into an endless seam. The stitches just kept going and the bodies just kept coming. Prompto had stopped keeping count at thirty-seven, stopped crying at eight, though number twenty-two did make his throat tight, and was yet to discern whether he’d stopped caring. Each one of them was just another photograph developing in the darkness with him, and sometimes Prompto thought he was the only one who could still see the horror of it all, the last to see it without edit or filter, as it was.

Countless nightmares in his first month had put peculiarity in his behaviour. Dreams of waking up, only for his newest task to be crawling across the floor in whatever wretched state they’d been found in, to tear at his throat and feel warm blood on their flesh again. He’d apologised to a total of seventeen cadavers for binding their wrists and ankles so that he could get a sleep that would end. Some nightmares had been simple; his own face, cold and dead as a stone, staring back at him from the gloom at the other wall.

In truth, there were no defined sides to that room, sans the walls. No border between living and dead. There were no shadows on one side, and bright, warm light on the other. The floor was unmarked and held them both level. There was simply space, and even that must collapse eventually.

A wet cough rattled from the other room. Prompto jolted and dropped the arm he was cleaning. It landed, limp and heavy, onto the body with a dull thud.

“Sorry.”

The quick and quiet apology reinforced by the careful touch he took towards them, as though any harsh contact would make their skin slough off. He needn’t have worried; this one was relatively fresh. In fact, it had barely any scent at all. A sour semblance of life, and of what had killed it.

The face, smooth and pale as a porcelain doll, with eyes just as round, was marked by a spray of blackened veins around the mouth and eyes. The bolder lines at the wrist had darkened too. They were cracks in the façade, broken ceramic that allowed the bitter, inky pitch to leech through and show itself.

The wound with equal role in death was small. No more than an inch wide, the slit at the base of the skull was one he’d already cleaned of blood and clear, pinkish fluid.

Prompto dipped the smeared cloth into the bowl of dark water once more and began to wash the final hand. The stains of life filled the lines of its palm. Prompto had always found hands to be the most human feature of all. Many of a person’s stories could be told from their hands, whether they had callouses or were as smooth as a child’s, whether the knuckles were split and bloody from going down fighting, or marked with the old wounds. The fingertips of this one were yellowed, as if they’d been dropped into tea and left to stain. A small, hard callous on the side of the thumbpad completed the clue. Smoker. Smooth knuckles; not a fighter, or very good at it. Dent on the left hand, ring finger; engaged, or married.

In some small, tragic way, Prompto hoped they’d pawned the ring. Hoped that it had been to buy medicine or food for their family, that they’d given all and had died loved, surrounded by those that mattered most. He made his own story for them, though his creativity still lingered on visuals, not ideas. He read a word and saw it in his mind, he heard a song and directed an act to go alongside. He could summarise entire books into a single photograph.

Now though, he was left with little option in lonely hours but to sketch his storyboards out for the people that passed through his hands. His involvement in their tales was short. After the body had been cleaned – a term fast coming to mean the wrenching out of metal fillings, the opening of old scars in search of surgical fixings and the removal of any and all jewellery – they passed to him. He would scrub them clean, always questioning the futility of putting a spotless body, unwrapped and uncoffined, into a dirt grave. He’d dig that grave, place them in it with his own two hands, stand for a moment that became shorter every time, and cover them up so that the surface could forget.

He’d had dreams about that field. It had once held trees, he’d walked amongst them. He wondered if it ever would again. Those had been softer nights. Snapshots of faces he’d only known dead cradled in the roots of trees, giving the last of themselves up to be seen by the sun again in any form; branch, leaf, fruit, blossom or seed. Though taken for granted, they’d become those things; the ones that mattered.

Prompto wasn’t sure who mattered anymore. He wasn’t sure what quantified ‘mattered’. People, both living and dead, mattered. Simultaneously, did they matter at all if that was the end they all faced; dying? He hadn’t seen the others in years and finding Cor had been pure chance.

Another few coughs followed by a long wheeze made Prompto still, then tense. A few more moments of silence swept the hairs on the back of his neck up. He scraped to his feet, gathering tired limbs from the floor, and slipped out of the room.

Once in the small hallway, he waited again. Nothing.

Prompto opened the other door and peeked inside. He was motionless.

A fizzing weight dropped in his gut. Each tiny claw tore at a stomach pain had long become standard in. He padded into the room, until he was level with the bulk of Cor’s still shoulders and reached across to shake them gently. Even through the sheets, feverish skin burned him. Contrast to his fiery surface, the old marshal was as glacial as Prompto had ever seen him. Pale beyond recognition, the lines of his face were blurred by a sheen of clammy sweat and the once steely blue of those eyes had gone the white of cracked ice, hard and brittle, as they lingered in deep, grey sockets. The mess of unruly stubble, far lighter than it should’ve been, was stained red at one corner of his mouth.

Even after years, Prompto still wasn’t sure what to call him. He’d been so many things to him; panic-inducing commander, patient but sceptical enabler of his firearms training, the sage of the group in those early days before they’d all shifted apart, like droplets of ink in water, and now, invalid. Cor Leonis was under his care, purely because Prompto had been in the right place at the right time. He’d been about to dive into yet another regiment of magitek. It seemed the empire had made so many, they still had some to spare.

If he were to ask any of the Nifs in Lestallum, as he had done at times, they all said the same thing. _Niflheim was never the Empire; the Empire just so happened to be in Niflheim._ Call a Nif Imperial, and the chances of making it through the following hour would’ve significantly slimmed, if it hadn’t been for the fact that they had a point to prove. Even years on, people trusted light features and quiet tongues less.

As for Prompto, he barely trusted himself, let alone anyone else.

“Hey… Hey, c’mon,” he said, pushing at Cor’s shoulder. Eyes too tired to hold focus for more than a few moments fixed on the pale features that had drawn into a frown.

Prompto’s empty stomach became heavy when he was pushed away by a weak, weathered hand to the elbow. Brows drawn together, as though unfastening them would be the beginning of his end, Cor coughed through a throat as ragged as the rest of him. He swallowed most of it, but Prompto saw that fresh drop, as though snow had thawed to give blood, seep from the corner of his chapped, peeling lips. The sickness had left him weak, but his lungs were as close to giving out as they were going to get.

The sensation in Prompto’s gut, as though it had grown hands and blunt fingertips were clawing at him, was one that gave him conclusion. Even if he didn’t matter to anyone, dead or no, he could still help, whether he was the hands that put them into the grave, or those that kept them from it.

In equal measure, he could damn and praise Cor. He’d kept him in the Guard, long after it had become evident that he was scraped from the bottom of the barrel. He’d indulged a risky scheme to let him train with guns and had made sure he knew how to use them.

On the other hand, he’d had also been the man that had approved Prompto for the trip. Without Cor’s say, Prompto would’ve stayed in the city, either to be evacuated or slaughtered. He would’ve been marooned in Lucis whilst the others went to Accordo. Hell, if Prompto hadn’t gone with them, they might’ve made it to Galdin on time. They might’ve caught a boat. It would’ve been different. It would’ve worked. They’d still be together and they’d still be four, instead of three, each scattered to his own point of the compass in a dark and lonely world.

A hoarse sound left the old marshal. Prompto shook himself from sharpening thoughts and tried to form words from the sinews that left a bloodied mouth. When they didn’t make sense, he spoke without thinking.

“S’okay… We’ll get you fixed, okay? Couple more days, then… Then we’ll…”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence and had no thought that needed to be spoken. Cor was already drifting off again, back to a feverish prison of nightmares and shadows. There was something to be said for a soul so deep in the dark that it still fought with shadows in a world with no sun. Cor did little but sleep, and Prompto was willing to bet that he woke, he wished he hadn’t.

That was how Prompto felt, after all, and Cor was far worse off than he.

He left the old, sleeping lion, scarred and thinned by years harder than the steel of his being, and slipped back into the small space between rooms. That hallway was the only place he ever lived anymore. Each time he stepped into those rooms, whether the body was dead or dying, he was dead with them; either nothing more than a machine that cleaned and readied them for the grave, or one that hid under skin and the guise of humanity to offer the feeble help of a mortal. There was little else for it; the gods held true power and they had long since abandoned man.

Unnerved by the freedom he found in the purposelessness of that narrow space, Prompto stepped into the room with the body and became the machine that made them ready.

* * *

His life had been a series of rhythms. One foot in front of the other, and faster. Point, frame, click. Ready, aim, fire. The old rhythms, songs that better suited brighter days when nights were a rare time to be more cautious and yet wilder, a time for neon and sweet drinks in company with morals far looser than their clothes, had been forgone. He still remembered them; they were part of him.

Prompto had a new rhythm now. It was clean, dig, bury. Again and again, until his head was nothing but the singing of steel against gritty, dull soil, the cold water he wrung from the cloth into the bowl, and the soft landing of heavy earth. Again and again, it chorused with the sounds of boots, the drowsy electricity of floodlights being switched on, the march back, the door, and the coughing. Hs life had fallen into symphony, and it was harder to ignore what he heard when all the lights went out.

He’d interrupted that new, and already wretched, rhythm with the simple addition of three notes. Knocks, to be precise. He hated the word ‘knock’. His mind always corrected it. Even the wooden sound of hollow knuckles against wood sounded like his name. He forced himself to stand while memory stole him away.

He was standing in front of an old, smooth mahogany door. Easily twice his height, the wood was warm in spite of its guarding strength. It wasn’t quite welcoming, but it didn’t ward him off. The possibility of it remaining closed did. Prompto reached out a pale hand, freckles dancing across his wrist in peach and apricot tones, and knocked.

He could hear his own voice. Smooth. Soft. Loud. Even as time and the confines of his own mind had warped the sound, the lilt of a smile sweetened his words.

_“Knock Noct!”_

Prompto couldn’t hear the reply, though he had heard it at the time. One of his minds final kindnesses was to blot out the more painful, warp it so that he could no longer recognise it. Noct’s voice was altered by one of these measures. He barely heard it at all, and that made him long until his throat was tight.

But the footsteps… He could hear them. Uneven, but light. His back had been hurting him again. He still hadn’t told Prompto why. The footsteps got louder, the brass of the door handle turned and the thin seam of honeyed light seeping from between the two doors thickened in every shade of gold that youth and nostalgia could afford.

“Well, don’t just stand there. What do you want?”

Prompto shook his head and tried to swallow hard enough to force away the sensation of a raging pulse that tightened around his throat with each beat. The dim yellow of the supervisors office caught him in a weak glare, just as jaded and bored as the stare of the man himself.

Greying too early, as they all were, his heavy jowls hung over the sides of his jaw, as though he’d filled his mouth with food and stretched the skin, only for it to hang and shake with every turn of his head. When he took a draw of his cigarette, Prompto was sure the pouches would fill with smoke and empty the wrinkled white stick with one draw, only to puff it out again like an old set of bellows.

“We uh…” Prompto began. His voiced faded to little more than a hoarse ghost before he forced it to take form again. “We were wondering when we… might… get… paid?”

The supervisor gave him a blank stare before he snorted a laugh. The movement made dim, rare light hide in his thinning hair.

“Well, now. That would depend who _we_ is.”

Prompto swallowed and forced himself to stand still. The man was a good foot shorter than Cor, and the marshal had often intimidated the young blond without meaning to. Somehow, a stout man with a cigarette in place of a katana and a few wiry tin curls atop his head had managed to silence him into the same nervous stupor.

His scoff came with a puff of acrid smoke, before he pulled the wooden clipboard from the walls with a clack. Prompto only saw the frayed, curled edges of the thick stack of paper as he stood on the gravel, and the man just inside the office.

“Sector?”

“Uh… Delta. Argentum, P.”

Prompto tried to keep his focus on him. He drew on the cigarette, rustling through the pages. He coughed, a small thing at first that grew claws and bristles as it strengthened, chastening him for his choices. The tiny glow of the cigarette, one that could silence a stomach and ease the mind fell onto the soaked gravel at Prompto’s feet. It died there, cold and alone.

Once he’d beaten the coughing fit back with a fist to his chest and his handkerchief over his mouth, the now reddened supervisor choked out his answer with watery eyes.

“Sweet Six… You’ll be getting paid.” He cleared his throat again, eyes wide as he concentrated on walking the line between relief and bringing on another bout. “In a month. _Maybe._ If you reach quota, unlike some of these ingrates, you’ll-.”

“Wait, what? A month?”

Prompto had a month. Cor didn’t.

Still red from his coughing, the supervisor eyed the pale specimen before him. Once boyish features had been made wolfish by the darkness, both outside and in. He was wiry, with straw yellow hair gathered in a small, messy ponytail at the back of his head, little more than a tuft. Stubble clung to his jaw like frost, around lips that were chapped and peeling. Cosmic blue, almost violet eyes, lingered in sockets that almost matched their hue.

“If you want paid, yeah-.”

“Wait, you don’t understand. I _need_ -.”

“ _A month_. Else you can prance back to town and find another job. Maybe scraping shit’s more your style,” he sneered.

The door slammed and left Prompto alone in the darkness again. That one thin seam of light, his one chance, had just become as narrow as ever, as unlikely. Alone in nothing but the sound of his own breath, his brows twitched into a frown.

The first landed on his shoulder. Then another on his head. Numb to anything outwith himself, Prompto only felt the rain and willed it to wash him away. As it became heavier, he could feel himself seeping into the ground with every drop, each just another streak that would bind him to the dirt before the rest of him had little option but to follow. After just a few minutes, he was soaked and so cold that he started to shake.

Instead of his lip trembling, his teeth chattered. Instead of the warm flood of tears that would’ve sprung from his eyes until his face was blotchy and red, it was the soft bullets of rain against features so still they were hard. Prompto had found ways of surviving, and one was to be harder. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

Lost in the swelling, indiscriminate noise of his own mind, black and scribbling, he marched back to the spot he’d been left to today. He took the shovel from its place alongside the bundle in the wheelbarrow and stabbed it into the ground. Stones, roots, hard patches, he didn’t care. It was in his way, and Prompto had a mind to dig this grave, then another, and another. To dig them all until there were more graves that bodies, living or dead.

They were all going to die anyway. He didn’t see much point in waiting for commission when there was demand in the market. The simple supply given by mortality alone was enough to warrant yet more holes in the ground, more pockmarks in the face of Eos, until they were all buried and gone.

What was the point in waiting to die anymore?

“Hey, woah. Take it easy, champ. You’ll blow your back out.”

The hand that landed, gentle and light, on his shoulder made him tense enough to stab the shovel into the ground again. Though his eyes had been open, he only just began to see again. He’d dug a pit three feet deep in dirt so soaked and compacted, it was little more than thick, unyielding clay. Only one more foot to go and he’d have dug the standard grave. Shallow. Rough. Still a grave.

Ferrin leant to the side to catch the violet gaze.

“Shit… You’re not getting paid, are you?”

“Oh no. I’m getting paid. In a month,” Prompto said, shoulders lifted in a weak shrug.

Ferrin winced, his auburn brows gathered in a frown as teeth gritted.

“Ah… _shit,_ man. I’m sorry-.”

Prompto waved the notion away minimally before he rubbed his running nose with a sniff and tried to ignore the swelling pain in his ear. “Nah, s’fine. Least I’m… Well, I’m getting paid.”

_Eventually._

At a loss for words, Ferrin squeezed his shoulder and offered a smile that tried to push its warmth through rain that streaked white in the floodlights. Prompto pressed his own lips into an upward curve and nodded. Once he’d left to do his own digging, Prompto took his shovel to earth once again.

The sound of it cutting through soaked dirt was a niche delicacy. It was the same sound as a knife through fresh carcass, of flesh being pared from bone and itself. It was savage and cathartic and with each dent he made, Prompto came closer to the grave in full. Each pile of dirt he took was yet another bite as he tried to make his way in.

They were all doing the same thing; trying to go back, to hide in the earth that had made them and all those before them. Ever the pursuit of man, to crawl back and hide, to be forgotten and allowed rest. It was an effort they all made, and all made it in vain. The words of an old friend, though he hadn’t heard the voice in years, were becoming ones he despised.

_Everyone dies on time._

Once the pit turned into a hole, then the hole into a ditch, then the ditch into a grave, Prompto stabbed the shovel into the ground to one side and tried to overcome the loss of balance whenever he tried to move. Shaking his head made it worse. He wobbled, stumbled, stood still, and waited for his head to settle again. The watery sensation abided, and he made his way to the wheelbarrow.

Shoulders aching and hot, he lifted the canvas from the body and left it at one side. Prompto hooked his arms under his and pulled.

There was a part of him that hated this more than any other step in the wretched process. Perfectly clean skin, cleaner than it had been in years, always managed to look so sullied by the splash of muddied water, or the gritty stain of dirt. It was pointless. All the effort taken to convince everyone that they were fine, clean and healthy, yet they still wound up in a hole in the ground, only to be covered and stained by earth that could no longer take them.

The soil was dead. Bodies simply lingered, rotting with the water until they reeked foully enough that a stray cigarette could set the ground on fire. The hidden gases that seeped through the soil easily caught flame, and over time the diggers had learned not to smoke on the field.

Prompto edged along the side of the grave as he steered his cargo into the final location. Some days he would wait, contemplate the life that ended here, in this final chapter. Not today. Prompto had a whole month, and yet he couldn’t wait. The limp wrist had barely fallen onto its owners chest before he’d picked up the shovel and begun to cover them over.

He used to take more care with that too. Careful application. He’d bury the feet first and always apologise when it came to the face. That was worse when the eyes were open and rigor mortis had set in before he’d been able to close them.

Prompto simply buried the remnants of that man, and he’d been bones long before he’d died, and before long, he’d settled on patting the risen patch of dirt smooth. Each impact of the flat face of the shovel was one more knock to the lands beyond the grave. He felt as though they’d been tasked to feed some enormous creature, ravenous and starved no matter how much they gave it. He was knocking on the cage bars as he dropped in the meal, simply making the announcement.

_Here's another one._

Slick with a blend of sweat and rain, Prompto stood for a moment and simply observed his newest creation. Dirt rose like the raised hackles of a dog, and when he looked about the field, Prompto was reminded of the scale of the pack. It made his head dry and taut, which only made the watery pain, fast becoming so hot it _felt_ red, in his ear worse.

“Hey.”

He turned to his right.

“Listen, I know it ain’t much, but you really oughta get that seen to before it becomes a real problem, you hear?”

Ferrin’s eyes, in their deep blue-grey, only left Prompto’s to flicker to the palm he’d held over his ear. Prompto hadn’t even realised that hand had risen to rub some of the ache away. When he gathered both gloved extremities in front of him, the redhead winced at the deep, rouge shade of the ear that seemed to glow with it. His earnest expression turned back to the bearer as he sniffed under the bandana that covered his face. Prompto cocked his head lightly and spoke with more melody in his voice than he could usually muster.

“Ah, it’s okay. It’ll fix up on its own, right as rain,” he smiled, though it was hidden beneath the bandana. The fabric did nothing to muffle his optimism.

“Yeah, course it will,” Ferrin nodded, before holding out his hand again. “ _After_ you see about _getting_ it fixed.”

Held in his hand, right between finger and thumb, was a small string of tiny paper tickets. There were enough of the faded orange slips to feed either of them for a month, more if they were careful. Enough then, to be seen by one of Lestallum’s two doctors, and maybe even pay for a small treatment.

But Prompto had other plans. Ones that wouldn’t be so easily shaken.

He despised the part of his mind, a small yet convincing voice, that told him to take the ration cards and run. It was tiny and immediately stamped on by louder voices in his mind, ones that cried decency and kindness, more than the simple base needs and the wretched clinging to a temporary purpose.

Violet eyes had gone wide at the offer. When he finally wrenched his focus back to Ferrin’s face, the redhead’s eyes had creased with a broad smile.

“Go on. You need em more than I do.”

“I… No man, I- I can’t…” he said, shaking his head. Creased eyes widened only to roll before they were pushed by a smile again.

“Nah, trust me on this one,” Ferrin nodded, pressing the orange slips into Prompto’s hands. “I ain’t gonna need em.”

Open-mouthed and failed by a lifetime of words, Prompto gripped his hand in firm sincerity and immeasurable gratitude. Bound by that, Ferrin shook the joined hands a little before he grinned broadly and backed away, shovel slung over his shoulder as he made for his own wheelbarrow, his own patch and his own body.

* * *

There had been nights when he couldn’t sleep because of the body he shared his quarters with. Even after becoming acquainted while they were cleansed, there were a few times when Prompto was convinced that not all the soul had left the flesh. That there was some shred stuck, like fur on barbed wire; some semblance, an echo of life that had been caught in crossing the border. He always felt it was a shame.

He felt that way about everything that was left behind, except himself.

He’d never shaken so much before. Not in training, not in Zegnautus, not even when the gales of Niflheim had snatched the warmth from his bones. Prompto had trembled with such severity, it was as though he were trying to impart life back into the body, to boost that final piece of soul over the fence, through sheer kinetics. He’d done what he could in the face of an end shrouded from him.

It hadn’t been enough. It had _never_ been enough.

Without food, water, or sleep, Prompto had numbed until he was as dead as his cargo. He followed the motions; the earliest steps of decay when it was all dance and barely macabre, when death was an imitation of life. Still warm. Soft. Even bright.

Prompto shucked the last shovelhead of dirt onto the pile. He couldn’t bear to pat it down, to knock and summon that beast. Not this time. He was to be laid to rest because godsknew he hadn’t in life. He’d smoked, joked, laughed and dug with the rest of them, but they all went back to different places after their shift. Different lives. They were no longer part of the army that functioned solely to give an end to those already finished.

Some were finished long before they were cleaned for the dirt.

The wounds struck Prompto most. Clean, simple, almost artistic. He’d scrubbed the watercolours of blood from his skin, the scarlet filigree from the lines of his hands, until the minimalist roots were revealed. Not savage and torn, they’d been quick and calculated. They’d been thought through, time and time again.

The marks were deep in Ferrin’s wrists. Deep enough to show how he’d felt. Deep enough to break through the bravado, the humour, the smiles and laughs. They’d cut to his core, and he’d bled.

Time didn’t exist to Prompto; it had been a waning concept for years. He’d tried measuring it. In ticks of the old watch, in footsteps, in breaths, pulses. All the way down to the smallest measures of time, little more than instants. The time it took for a stomach to sink or to jolt awake as though he’d been dropped.

He stood by the new grave, rough and unfinished, even as heavy boots approached. A voice said something, but it was warped and difficult to make out, as though he was underwater. Prompto was drowning, and he’d only realised after another had succumbed to the waves. Something else was pushed into his hand. That and the pat on his shoulder pulled him close enough to the surface to make out the words.

“Welcome to Beta.”

Prompto didn’t hear the man walk away. He didn’t see the floodlights being shut off and sprinting away to leave them in the darkness again. He didn’t hear the boots, the steps, from dirt onto cobbles. He didn’t smell the spices on the corner or the sickly sweetness of the stall, and he didn’t hear the old door creak when he shouldered inside.

But he saw every one of those stairs. Dented and scratched, the old floorboards coughed dust when even feet as light as Prompto’s made their falls while he climbed. When they ran out, and there were no more, he crossed the small landing and opened the door to a room he hoped was quiet out of peace. When the cold brass of the doorknob clicked behind him, he dared to look up.

Curled on his side and exactly where Prompto had last seen him, the scarlet that had begun to drip onto the sheets had been sprayed by harsher coughs and hacked from him with each fit. Some of the bloodstains were darker, while others were fresh and far brighter than the body that had been forced to give them. The hoarse wheezes that came with each fading breath were frailer than a fighter deserved.

Prompto stood alongside the bed and gently set his bag down on the floor. Under weather-beaten skin and muscles made wiry by age, the bones in Cor’s shoulders were too easy to feel. Prompto turned him onto his back. He froze, wide-eyed and so frantic he was motionless when Cor’s breathing stopped.

Prompto made for the bag. It would already be too late, but there was a chance, a slim chance. Shaking hands dug past the canvas and hauled the pale, blue glow from the depths. The glass barely had time to cool his hands before he held it over Cor and crushed it in. Blue flecks fell down and melted against his skin like snow as the thick, sweet scent of the potion rose.

A steady rise and fall returned to the old soldier’s chest. Prompto closed his heated eyes and took deep breaths until the clawed panic of it slipped away. Steadied for a moment, he reached into the bag and took out the small brown bottle, and the larger one of water. After he’d put two of the small capsules in his palm, he reached under Cor’s shoulders and tilted him up.

“C’mon. Take these. They’ll make you better, okay?” he whispered. Little more was needed.

Half-roused and only just pulled from that disorientating scape of nightmares and fever dreams, Cor let Prompto tip the pills into his mouth, then enough water to swallow them.

“Alright?”

Cor blinked once as he tried to hold a focus on the blurred blond.

“Okay, get some sleep. Let’s get you better, huh?”

Prompto might’ve smiled, but he couldn’t see it. Nevertheless, it was the brightest thing Cor had heard in months, maybe years. As he drifted back to sleep, Prompto left the pills and the water on the small table by the bed and pulled the sheets up around his shoulders. He took one last look.

Tired fingers, covered in burns from cigarette stubs and cuts from the grit of the new life, pulled the old watch from the palm of his glove. It still ticked. Prompto left it with the bottles, facing its owner. He’d need it.

Prompto slipped from that room and into the other.

There was no body to clean this time. No evidence of life to wipe from the dead; no skin to clean only for the grave to stain it with the reminder of mortality. A muddy end awaited all of them. Prompto leant against the wall and sank down until he sat on the floor, legs too tired to ache flopped in front of him.

His legs used to take him places. As far as he wanted. They’d been the ultimate factor in change, of self or situation. Prompto had spent his life running and always from himself. But this… There would be no running from this.

His life had been a series of snapshots, and Prompto had finally snapped.

A burst of blue ashes put it in his hand. Smooth as it cooled from the heat of summon, the click of the barrel being flicked out, back in, then whirr as the it spun, was bridge and chorus to Prompto. The taste of metal in his mouth was far sweeter than he’d ever thought it would be, and gods knew he’d thought about it. It wasn’t entirely saccharin, there was that bitter note of gunpowder, fizzing and dark.

What struck him was the peace. Simplicity. It would be that simple. All the noise, the blurred lines between dead and alive, the voices, the pain, all of it could stop with one last burning moment. It was almost delirious. The sheer temptation of it, the promise that _would_ be fulfilled. It was a call that would be answered with the simple echo of a gunshot.

Something stayed his hand.

Alone in that room, it touched him. It was delicate fingertips under his chin, soft against the stubble as they tilted his face up. Only then did he feel the hot tears streak down either side of his throat, gather in the hollows of his clavicle and down his chest. That invisible hand was too gentle to be insincere and kind in harsh times. A small, simple gesture, the lifting of cosmic eyes to a ceiling, though he knew the stars were beyond. What lay amongst them was a mystery for someone else, but that had never stopped humanity searching.

Hope was the fuel of that fire. Hope was far more constant than a candle flame. Hope is a star. It can guide, change, vanish with the seasons and reappear again. Watched for too long and it will shy from the forefront, too much pressure makes it dull and weak, but when it’s needed, when there’s no moon and the sun has failed, it will offer what little light it can. It can seem too distant to grasp, but one need only glimpse it to have it again.

Prompto’s eyes had been cast skyward by the gentle hand that lifted his chin, and that hand had a name.

Grace.

“You don’t have to.”

Prompto’s inhale was lightning against the soft thunder in the room. Beyond unexpected and still far from strong, Cor leant against the doorframe for another moment before he stepped into the small room reserved for the dead, not dying.

Still frozen with the gun in his mouth, the flooded stars of Prompto’s eyes were as lost as anyone had ever seen them, let alone Cor. He stood tall, little more than a stack of bones refusing to become dust, and dark in that room. Pale lips twitched around the barrel.

“I know you want to,” he said, nodding gently as he stepped closer again. Cor was unsteady as he took to his knee, then the other, and sat on his heels. “And you think you need to… But you don’t have to.”

Prompto stayed still, finger on the trigger.

Steel blue eyes, the shade of potions, locked on those spilling stardust and crying out the cosmos in their tears.

“I don’t have any right to say you can’t, and I know I can’t make people stay, but _you don’t have to.”_

Something in that struck Prompto softly. Through blurred vision, he saw the weathered hands, skin long faded from the depths of its tan, open and unfurl like a net. They weren’t chasing him, but they’d catch him as he fell.

The metal had been warmed against his tongue, but he took it away. Prompto held onto the gun as his hands fell into his lap, then let it thump against the old, mouldy floorboards. Cor reached for it slowly and placed it down behind him.

Prompto stared at his empty hands. Callouses had become so hard that labour had sheared them from his skin. Cuts and blisters lines the parts of them that were still soft. Still vulnerable. They were the hands of death. They never delivered it but never fought it away either. They simply accepted it. Prompto was the middle man between life and death. It was all he’d ever been; in the road from A to C, he’d always been B. He’d been the filter between scenario and audience; what existed and what he would freeze into a photograph for others to see.

“I remember the guy that brought you.”

Violet eyes stayed on the floor.

“Real asshole. Stubborn as hell. But with you… He had no idea what he was doing when he brought you back… Still, wasn’t the worst idea he’d ever had.”

Bitterness rose in the back of Prompto’s mouth. He held his hand to his nose as he sniffed, then buried the shaking fingers in his hair. It was a comfort he could offer himself; he’d never been able to rely on anyone else to offer it.

 “You remember what he called you?”

The huffed laugh that left Prompto was cold. He shrugged and gave his answer without looking at Cor. “Nif… Freak… Monster.”

Something warm met Prompto’s cheek. He almost flinched away, but it was familiar. Something old and instinctive. Cor’s hand was careful against his skin, each roughened by their years. Both pairs of blue eyes met, one welling with utter desolation, while the other held certainty. Gratitude. Pride.

_“Prompto.”_

It was a fleeting impulse, but he’d never been very good at controlling those. Prompto flew forwards and wrapped his wiry arms around the old, knotted shoulders of the marshal and cried. Wrapped in strong limbs, and though he’d known them once before, Prompto sobbed into Cor’s shoulder as though he’d never be offered the chance at comfort again.

Cor’s throat tightened as he held the boy hiding in the body of a man who was convinced he was less than that. He rocked gently with whispered words he hadn’t said for years. He’d convinced himself that he’d have nothing to do with him; that he would be nothing more than _the Argentum boy._

But to Cor, he’d always been Prompto. His Prompto. Though he’d long grown into a man and become his own, the blond that cried in his arms was just as vulnerable as he had been at the beginning of his life. Cor remembered, and the words given now were the same as then.

“It’s alright… It’s alright, I’ve got you… You’ll be okay.”


	25. Decomposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elsewhere in a ruined Lucis, a band of survivors have formed a family, and even after six years, some wounds are still fresh.

She’d known the forest in infinite ways. The shafts of light through the trees had been a conductor’s baton, and with it the symphony of the trees had changed. Birdsong before dawn. Nothing but the rustle of leaves at the height of day as thousands combined into the smooth draw of strings. Evening brought yet more vocals, birds into beasts as night fell. The lonelier cries of small hours would fall away to feathered clamour, day after day and season after season. She’d known them for years, learned the rhythms given by streams and rivers, and the lessons of the woods.

She’d never forget the sounds and scents of life and living.

For years, even the soil had been dead. Nothing moved in it anymore, and it was as hard and dull as the roots of trees. They were little more than memories carved in wood. Gravestones commemorating the old world. There used to be so much colour. The green of the grass; rich, brown soil that glistened with potential; leaves that followed their shades from jade to fire; blossoms of every colour and scent. The world used to be more. Now, it was little but a scentless land of ashen dirt and bony trees. They were living in a cold, incomplete cremation. Hell without the fire.

Rena missed the sound of the leaves. The smell of rain on good, fresh earth. She missed the lushness of grass between her fingers, and the way pollen and mayflies burned bright in the evening sun.

The old magic was gone.

Silence granted clarity. Above the rare beating of branches against each other, she could hear everything. Her own boots landed quiet on the ground in her steady march. There was a creek two hundred yards to her left, by her guess. Ochre was a few steps ahead. The dog’s paws were almost inaudible, but his size made the shifting of his weight give him away. He kept his nose busy in the air.

Daemons didn’t leave tracks.

The final sound was painfully obvious, as much as it tried not to be. It shifted, light and fast, as it tried to keep in the sweet spot of pursuit. It should’ve made the hairs on the back of her neck rise, made her hand reach for the knife. Instead, it made her shake her head and speak out into the quiet.

“Go back.”

The sound gave one final, quiet gasp, nothing more than darting to hide in case she turned around. Rena stopped in the sparse trees that would’ve offered far more cover years before and sighed. Her tone took stern gentleness when she spoke again.

“Talcott,” she warned.

Silence.

“Go back.”

When she turned over her shoulder, she watched the trees. Rena narrowed his hiding spots down to three thicker oaks. One had been split by lightning and nursed a shelf of mushroom in its scar. With what little light a dimmed flashlight allowed, Rena shone it on the tree. The caramel flesh of the fungus was smooth as it layered on top of itself like ruffled feathers. A tiny scoffed breath left her. Rena stepped forwards, pulled her knife from the worn leather of the belt at her thigh and began to carve the mushroom away from the trunk.

“Aw, c’mon. You’re always saying I need to learn! Why not today?”

“Because if you were meant to learn today, I would’ve brought you with me,” she reasoned, tone calm and gently final. Talcott chewed the inside of his cheek while he formed his response.

“If I wasn’t meant to learn today, I would’ve stayed back.”

“Did you tell Gladio?”

“Mhm.”

When Rena finished cutting the mushroom from its binding point, she handed it to Talcott with little more than a glance and a raised eyebrow in his direction. She swung her rucksack to her front and dug around for a stretch of linen.

“You’re not ready yet.”

“You said that last time,” he groaned, letting his head fall back. Rena took the mushroom from his hands and wrapped it in the clean fabric.

“Shh.” She tucked the mushroom into her rucksack as she hushed him. “I meant it last time. More than I did today.”

She finished tying the leather strings of her bag and shouldered it again. Rena swept her hair back from her face and glanced across to meet Talcott’s bright expression. There was a keen smile being suppressed as hazel eyes clung to the loophole he’d found.

“So… I can come with you?” He raised his brow.

Rena finished putting the knife back in its holster and set off again. “No.”

“Aw c’mon!”

“Might want to be quiet. You’ve got a long walk back and nothing sharp in your hands.” Rena cocked her head and sent Ochre to pace a few steps ahead.

“Rena, please-.”

“No.”

She halted and turned to face him. Dark eyes met Talcott. Hers had always had the ability to stop him in his tracks. To make him think twice. He’d tried to learn her stubbornness, but it had never stuck. Of all the things she’d taught him, the patience required to be steady was a lesson he was yet to learn.

“Not this time,” she said, firmness shedding from her tone until it was nothing but conclusion.

Talcott shook his head with a frown as he pulled an answer from the cool, dark air.

“You say that every time, and then you tell me I need to learn. It’s just negotiation, right? How hard can it be? And if I wanna be able to go out on hunts with you guys, I need to learn how to get the jobs in the first place, right? This is the easy part.” He shrugged, gesturing to the trees ahead and the darkness that swallowed them.

Rena gave a warm beat of laughter, though it wasn’t without a lacing of cynicism. She shook her head and locked eyes with him.

“Talcott, you need to be able to hide in plain sight. You need to be across from a guy and know what the fucker behind you’s doing. You need to talk to him, tell him what he wants to hear so that he tells you way more than he should.”

“I know, but-.”

“But there is precisely fuck all stopping him from pulling a knife on you,” she nodded, holding his gaze. “The best hunters die in bars and outposts because they get too big for their boots, slip up and get their throats cut. If they’re lucky, it happens in their sleep. Talcott, you can know everything there is to know about tracking, traps, hunting, what weapons to use and how to sort a catch, but if you can’t sit in front of a guy and hide, see and not be seen and all that shit, you’ll get killed. You understand?”

The finality was one she’d scraped from the rough edges of Lucis, from every dingy bar and chain-link compound she’d struck deals in. It had settled on her like soot, the charred dust of fires she’d walked through. It was the breath of dragons. Harsh and quick. Not swiftly forgotten. The eyes that met Talcott had seen what she was warning him about and were earnest in the one thought she let him read; they were not things she wanted for him.

He suddenly felt smaller. The trees were clawed and reaching down to tear at him, to keep him in his place and strike the invincibility of youth from him. Even in times as trying as those, young blood still burned bright and impulsive, no matter how careful his character was. If it had been anyone else leading him into that world, he would’ve been far more cautious.

He would’ve been terrified.

A thought struck Talcott and came with the salt of guilt for not having realised it before. Each and every time she’d led on, he had always been sure that she’d get them out the other side and protect them from the consequences of her own actions. It was only now he realised that his actions had every potential to endanger her. That it would be the two of them walking them into this; not one and her shadow. One false move, and he could get them both killed.

“I-I get it,” he said thickly.

Rena breathed a deep sigh and studied him once more. As much as he tried to keep certain, to keep the edge he was learning to hold, one he sharpened as he learned, steady and precise, she saw him waver. She was grateful for it; hesitation meant he understood. He knew the price of bargaining could be high, and that risk was always greater than capability.

“Alright,” she conceded, turning on her heels to lead away.

Talcott stood still for a moment before he jogged to draw level and walked alongside her. Only just beginning to equal her height, his growth had made him lanky. Talcott knew far more than the gods, of just how hard they worked to keep his stomach full and sleep guarded. They were simple things; the necessities of life before.

Life had changed.

Talcott pulled the scarf that had been swinging in his back pocket and wrapped it around his neck before he blew on his fingers and rubbed his hands together. When he put his hands in his pockets, one was nudged loose by the insistent muzzle of Ochre. He gave the dog a quick scratch behind his ear before flicking his hand in gesture. Ochre stayed by his side. Talcott tried again.

Rena let out a soft loop of a whistle, almost an owl’s hoot, and Ochre loped ahead to search a few feet in front of them. The pale arch of his tail was a slowly waved flag that guided them on.

“So, uh… If things start looking testy, you gonna whistle? Tap the table or something? Gimme a signal?”

“No.”

Talcott’s head whipped to her. Under the borderline paranoid curiosity of hazel eyes, Rena kept her gaze on the trees ahead, and her ears on everything else.

“If you’re gonna learn,” she said, stepping up onto a fallen tree before she hopped down onto the other side. Rena paused for a second to ensure the soft impact hadn’t invited any unwanted attention. Content with the quiet after Talcott joined her, she continued. “You’re gonna learn. Read the room and pay attention.”

Rena glanced at him as he mentally noted it, eyes softly focused on the dull, bare earth beneath their feet. When hazel eyes flicked up to hers, they held a question before he’d even voiced it.

“What if things… start looking a little…?”

“Shitty?”

“Yeah.”

Rena nodded and took a deep breath, then let her answer fall on the exhale. “Don’t go in expecting it to. You buzz a certain way, they’ll start stinging. Whatever you do, don’t start a fight. Someone’ll put a knife in your chest before you even get yours out.”

“I’m getting pretty good with the-.”

In a movement so fast and minimal he barely saw it at all, the glassy steel of her hunting knife was flat against his throat. Her point had been sharp. She hadn’t even broken stride.

“Whole… Knife… Thing…”

“Did you bring it with you?” She raised an eyebrow.

Talcott’s mouth hung open as he blinked at her.

“Really?”

“I uh… Mighta… Left it…?” he trailed off, voice becoming smaller as though he could hide from her.

Rena shook her head as a sigh picked up heat in her throat, almost a growl. She marched on ahead. Talcott grimaced, mentally damned himself and tried to push away the image at the forefront of his mind; the drop point blade he’d left under his bedroll after sharpening it under her watchful ‘eye’. Rena hadn’t even been looking but she could hear when he applied too much pressure with the whetstone, moved too fast or slow, or simply didn’t listen to the steel. Talcott was still learning, and knives were a language he’d always found too harsh. But they’d insisted on it; it was for his own good. Still, he struggled to stomach the sight of blood and the idea of a knife grating against flesh as it was stabbed in was enough to make him squirm.

As much as times had changed, traditions were still held close and in the heart. The words of his house still had weight but were hard to follow in the new world. He managed simply because they were as integral to him as his pulse, his breath and every fibre of his being.

Non nocere.

Do no harm.

“But it’ll be fine, right?” he asked, jogging to catch up.

“You’re really gonna learn.”

His brows pinched together, as he spoke with impending regret. “The hard way?”

“Mmh,” she hummed an affirmative. Rena took another lungful of cool, damp air. When she spoke, it was mostly to herself. “The fuckin’ hard way.”

Through the plunging darkness, it was as though they were walking through the mouth of some gargantuan, dead whale. Every tree was yet another pale column of baleen as they trekked over a dry and ruined tongue, cracked through no means other than loss of circulation. They were taken deeper into the dark when, at last, a single yellow dot glowed ahead.

Rena patted her thigh and gave a concave whistle that kept Ochre fixed at her side. She reached under her hair to the fastening of the silver and pearl and swiftly undid it before she tucked the necklace into her pocket and traded it for another. Steel instead of silver. No craftsmanship, no decoration. Nothing but heavy, leaden history. There were memories in every tarnish of the dog tags, some her own and others belonged to people long gone.

Talcott was one of the few to witness her in that change, when Rena did what she’d always done. It was seldom summarised as clearly as it was in that moment. She put aside what she was and became what she needed to be. What others needed. Ever the creature of necessity, it was as easy and practiced as the prayers of the more pious.

A hundred feet from the light, as strange and welcome a thing it was in days as dark as these, Talcott’s hand started to shake. He hid them in his pockets as though any falter would be excuse enough to make him wait outside or send him back. Worse yet, now that she knew he was without a knife, she’d bring him back. He’d be the pup that tried to hunt, only to be brought back to the den by the scruff of his neck. She’d have to try again. In the meantime, they’d all go hungry.

They wouldn’t talk about it, but Talcott knew when they were disappointed. Both had never been partial to saying more than needed said. They were just that fraction quieter. They’d wear gentle expressions to his face, but frowns behind his back. Even worse, they wouldn’t even be angry. They’d be let down, and he’d be the cause.

Fifty feet away, and Rena snapped her fingers and pointed to a small ditch beside a boulder. Ochre stood in the dip and lay down when instructed.

“Stay.”

The firm instruction was more than the dog needed. He stretched out and rested his head on crossed paws as his tail fell beside him. Silent and still, he’d be safer than them. At least Ochre had room to run, and the sense to do it. With his mottled coat of cream, wheat, grey and white, even his tail stopped until he was little more than a furred boulder with ears and watchful chestnut eyes.

Talcott crouched to give him a quick scratch on the cheek, a soft touch the dog leant into, before he stood to his height and followed Rena again. Ochre let out a single grumble but was silenced by her soft hush.

Twenty feet and the dim light revealed itself to be a single, lantern with broken glass sides that hung from the porch of an old hunting lodge. A small wooden mount hung above the double doors, stained with the pale absence of the trophy it used to hold. Talcott stayed clear of the few barrels beside the stairs and found himself close behind her. Hiding. His eyes became more and more frantic. They darted over the details of the building. The cobwebs in the rafters. A thick, rusted hoop with a heavy chain hung from it. The dark stain beside the boarded-up window and the way it slipped and pooled on the scratched floorboards that had soaked up its metallic scent.

When they stepped up onto the porch, their steps stirred the reek of contraband from the wood. For how rare it was to find a bottle, both intact, anything over half-full and still good, the ghost of hard liquors waited in dark alleys and corners, smooth, lush, one leg bared, and invitation laced in their scents. The promise of absence was one fewer were able to resist in days that were far too sobering.

“You sure about this?”

The smooth tone in gentle inquisition was one that made Talcott think again. A roar of laughter came from beyond as they stood at the edge of the porch. After staring at the doors in for too long, Talcott had spent his time trying to smooth his nerves down instead of considering her question.

“Yeah, I mean… How sure do I have to be again?” he asked, ashen brows drawn together as he looked to her for more than a hint; for guidance.

Pale skin caught the colour of the tea-stained light and only made the stains of a few days and dark features seem darker. Years had boldened her features. The faint strands of copper and bronze amongst the wild tangle of brown curls were a rarity brought forward by light. The dog tags were blackened by years as the chain disappeared under the slate Henley. She’d rolled the sleeves of it to her elbows, exposing pale forearms that had long lost their freckles. Only the boldest remained. The scars were all the starker for it. Old jeans were looser than they had been, ripped and sewn back up in a few small places, and bolstered to her by the belts, one hidden under the shirt and the other at her thigh, knife ready.

She shrugged lightly and shook her head before she gave a simple answer. “Sure enough.”

“Oh. That helps.”

A semblance of a laugh huffed through her nose.

“More sure than not is usually a good start,” Rena offered with a gentle nod. She crossed her arms and swayed from side to side, worn boots planted where she stood. “You can’t be sure of fuckin’ anything on their part, so don’t even try. Know what you can do, and do it faster than them.”

Talcott nodded as he drew a deep breath through gritted teeth.

“Alright?”

“Mhm.”

“Then stop shaking,” she said, as she turned towards the door and caught the handle her fingertips. “Don’t take anything you can’t give back, either. If they give you a drink, don’t have more than half. Don’t eat anything. We need them to owe us.”

“Okay, I… I got it.”

He forced his breathing to steady and locked on her again. A hand bound in once-white linen pulled the door open just enough and slipped inside. With her back to the door and arm braced against it to hold it for him, dark green eyes gave their final warning. Talcott bit the side of his tongue and edged in, forced to pass right in front of her as he kept his eyes on the floor.

“Go sit down,” she whispered as his ear came into range, squeezing his elbow in a final comfort. The whisper itself was a final, soothing sound. It was the same that had guided him back to bed for years; the same that had hidden him from the harshness of the world when it came knocking. He nodded and padded into the lodge.

The wooden beams and rafters were a dark cedar, with pale scars chewed into them. The floorboards were just as dark and stained hundredfold. Pale, colourless light shone from a few naked lightbulbs, spattered with thin brown and dark, crusted red as they hung from rafters and nails, wires bare. The air was thick and fiery with liquor, sweat and a bitterness he couldn’t name. It was the slap instead of the kiss.

Broken glass crunched under Talcott’s boot. His jolt was stilled by the familiar hand on his elbow. He looked aside to see dark green eyes that had already taken notice of more in the room than him. Her gaze met his, then fixed on an empty stool by the makeshift bar. Talcott took a seat and tried not to let his eyes wander.

Curiosity and caution both told him to keep them open.

His seat had been one of the few unoccupied. The rest were filled by rough characters. They didn’t look up from their own concerns, but Talcott could still feel stares on him. Almost bored. He’d be so easy. A rabbit would’ve offered more challenge; it’d be harder to catch. When a cough threatened in his throat, he fought it down and tried not to gag on the dry tickle. He made sure to growl when he cleared his throat. Deep.

Jaws coated in rough stubble, some greying and others oiled in their colours, the present company were wrought in as many shapes and sizes as a drunk blacksmith’s wares. Some sipped tiny glasses of clear amber, as thick as honey. A few sat in a circle, cards in their hands and secrets in their eyes as smoke from wrinkled, white cigarettes shrouded their decisions. A few women were amongst them, though vastly outnumbered. Some were as rough and scarred as the men, whilst others kept their hair fine and clothes cleaner than the rest. Something about those women unsettled Talcott. Their eyes were warm, but it wasn’t kindness. It was keen focus and opportunism. The type that pulled their knife out from underneath the pillow of their bedmate.

Glass was slammed onto the bar in front of him. Talcott turned too fast. He’d barely started to damn himself when a grin with black stumps, gaps and yellowed teeth emerged from the white wire of a scraggly beard, no more than a few inches long. There was something pale in the man’s eyes, something that made Talcott fight the fawnish expression from his own features.

“On the house,” he drawled, before he spat on the wood of the bar and polished it with a filthy cloth. He worked his way along the wood and left Talcott with his shoulders hitched high. Who could tell him the consequences of brushing the men to either side, and his protection was further away by the second.

Rena slipped to the back of the lodge, to a scarred, square table with three men on three sides and an empty chair on the last. They flicked their cigarette ash into a small copper dish in the centre of the table and sipped from dark brown bottles. Another man was just beyond. Tall and brutish, he gripped the collar of a smaller man’s shirt and rammed his fist into the side of his head, over and over.

One at the table took another draw of his cigarette and choked out acrid puffs when his eyes fell on the Rena. His chair scraped across the floor as he stood and held a hand out to the man with bloody knuckles.

“Alright! Alright, Joell, I think he’s had enough,” he raised his voice over the sound of bone crashing into bone, time after time. He sweetened his tone as he looked back to Rena and gestured to the free seat. “We got business to attend to.”

Joell stopped, wiped his fist under his nose with a sniff and spat onto the groaning heap on the floor. Hulking shoulders stretched the navy of his flannel tight as he gathered his hands together and turned around. A blond eyebrow raised at her. Underneath a mess of honey toned hair, there were brown eyes and a square jaw coated in pale, reddish stubble. A spatter of blood was fresh on his throat as it collected to a thicker droplet and coursed down under his shirt. He wiped hard, working hands on a dark cloth before tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans. As he looked at her, in all her steadiness, a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Good to see ya again, darlin’,” he rasped, smirk blooming into a full smile.

“Likewise.” Rena nodded, gaze focused and voice smooth as the dark grey of thunderclouds.

Joell stepped forwards and pulled out the chair before he gestured for her to sit. Rena kept her eyes on him as they drew level. Petal pink lips stretched into a grin before the brown of his eyes shone liquid and silken, like melted chocolate.

“I ain’t gon’ bite… ‘Less you want me to,” he offered, one eyebrow raised.

“Got anywhere in mind?”

She shouldered out of her rucksack and held it by one of the straps. When she turned over her shoulder, he was barely a foot away and she could smell him. All the musk and scent given by a sawmill. Fresh cut wood, sweat, gasoline, a few dozen wood resins and sweet woodsmoke.

His deep, throaty voice met her ears and trailed down her neck like a tongue.

“Couple places.”

“I’d bet.” She cocked her head. Joell leant on the back of the chair with one hand and stood close, chest centred at her shoulder as he stood a three or so inches taller than her.

“Mmh… Just little places…” he trailed, hand smoothing along the back of the chair, towards her thigh. “Little soft places with a whole lotta potential. Been too long since I got my-.”

“You want to get your dick wet, go piss lying down.”

Rena slipped her hand under his own to hold the knife’s hilt. A raised eyebrow was all he needed to hold his hands up, still sporting his game smirk. She gave him one last glance through her lashes and took the seat. She pulled it to the table, pinned her rucksack between her calves and looked across the table.

The thin, wiry man on her left was fast asleep with his chin on his chest. On her right, another man, short but muscular, was shuffling through a small stack of papers that had been written and rewritten so many times, the ink had blackened his fingers. The third and final man, who had beckoned her over and called Joell from his business, sported a short full beard in the same dark tone as his hair. Clear blue eyes with hardly any colour in the narrow rings demanded by low light were fixed on her.

“And what can we do for you today?” His tone was laced with the requisite pleasantry and just enough false sincerity.

Rena stabbed the knife into the pockmarked table until half an inch of steel had bitten the hardwood. She let go of the hilt and leant forwards to rest her forearms either side. His mouth formed a round smile as pale eyes glinted. Each slight wobble of the knife caught the light.

“Oh, we’re doing business?”

“Depends what you’ve got,” she shrugged. Hidden by her hair, Rena’s ear twitched back to the almost-silent landing of a chair leg on the flagstone of the lodge’s rear alcove. A dry waft of sawdust revealed who. “If it’s boring, you can get him to do it.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the newly seated blond.

“Well now,” he laughed. He leant aside and fixed his gaze on Joell as he took another draw of his cigarette. “What do you say to that?”

“I say send her with me, could use the extra hands.”

“If you can fit it in one, you can fuckin’ keep it.”

“Got one in mind, but she keeps teasin’,” he growled warmly as he kicked the back of her chair with no real force, but enough to be felt.

“Now, Joell. Have a little respect.” He knitted his brows, almost in offence. “This lovely lady here is one of our best. She’s never once let us down, and always delivers on time…”

Rena rolled her eyes but used the expression to hide something else.

Talcott was still at the bar, gripping at the tiny glass in his hand as though he could become just as transparent and disappear through contact alone. Frantic eyes made their rounds of the lodge before they landed back on the table. Rena’s had already moved back to pale hues across from her.

“And as such, we ought to show a little bit of decorum…Lil bit o’ the old hospitality,” he nodded, before stabbing his own knife into the table.

The impact roused the man to her left, who made his own addition. The other rifled through papers with one hand while drawing a shiv from his lap and piercing the old hickory. Rena reached back and held her hand open. Joell’s breath was warm on her neck as he leant forwards to hand her his own knife.

“Nice and hard. Get it in real good, sweetheart,” he coaxed.

She snorted. “I’ll try not to break it.”

With the final knife stabbed into the table, unspoken, unquestioned conduct strung itself between them. Rena took a deep breath and slowly, enough to make it seem she was barely breathing at all. She kept her focus on pale eyes, but drifted away to make it natural. The act was so instinctive, the part so familiar, that she even visibly twitched at the roars of laughter and smashing of glass in the rest of the lodge.

“C’mon then Arin, give me your worst.”

“Ah, we’ve had the usual stuff through. Couple daemonised arba turned up about twenty miles south, damned things are a mess. Now, I think we had something over in Leide. Hand me that note, Eli.”

After a few shuffles of his pile, a single, crinkled page was retrieved and given to Arin. His mouth twitched as he read the scribbles.

Rena kept her left ear trained to Joell as he loomed behind her, edging closer on his seat and resting his elbows on his knees, head almost level with her shoulders. Honey toned waves hung thick and ragged. Rena fought the flinch when his knuckles brushed her thigh. He feigned innocence and simply toyed with the loop used to hold her knife.

“Looks like a couple daemon clear outs, there’s been some big ones recently. Big crop of giants this year, ‘specially those damn red ones.”

She needed to focus, which meant she needed to distract the others. The men to either side were busied with their own tasks, both somnolence and continual, addicted reorganisation. Better that than face the still quiet of the world. Rena needed to pay full attention to Arin, and so she laid out a path for Joell. Something to keep him on predictable tracks.

With a light touch played beside her thigh, Rena spread her legs ever so slightly, but enough to hear his breathing change. Within the second, a heavy hand rested on the top of her leg, thumb stroking idly.

“And a couple wraiths clogging up the bridge.”

Joell’s hand guided her leg further from the other, and she let him.

“Other than that, it’s flans, spiders and a couple rabid chocobos,” he listed, dropping the sheet onto the table. He offered his next with a smirk. “Unless you wanna go wire cuttin’.”

Rena pinched her brows together a little and shook her head with a small shrug, enough to give Joell the opportunity to slip his hand between her legs and begin the upward stroke.

“C’mon, I know you’ve got something better than that,” she coaxed. “Getting bored.”

Rena made it seem she’d smashed the shell to reach the delicate, sweet flesh within, like breaking a mussel. The reality was that she was teasing it out with a hook so fine they could barely see it.

Daemon hunts, especially for anything smaller than a lich, were ill-payed and seldom worth the travel, let alone the effort to make the kills. Stealing scrap metal and wire from old outposts, some that still functioned, and the power lines that kept Lestallum in a rare puddle of light, offered slightly more, but not enough. The risk of the act was less, but the chances of being ambushed and losing the haul to a competitor were far more. They didn’t care who brought it back, as long as it got there.

“Well, thing is… We don’t.” He shrugged.

Rena played her card; Joell. At Arin’s nonchalance, she drew her legs together again. There was no way he could part them without being caught and likely dismissed. The wolfish brows drawn into a frown were directed towards the cause of this new hurdle.

Arin saw his frown, the small shake of his head and the look in his eyes that could’ve been pleading. He stuck his tongue into his cheek and sat back in his chair. Arin considered her in silence for a moment before a sly smile put a curve into his mouth, like a gently drawn bow.

“You’re really wanting to play with the big boys, ain’t ya?”

“They’re more my size anyway.”

Joell’s insistence had no effect; it was all about timing. Rena used him as a smokescreen; he was a tool to guide the others. What seemed like denying and rewarding him was simply a game of cat and mouse. Whenever Arin made a move too far in one direction, down came the paw to bounce him back to the centre of play. She was steering them, projecting her own demands through an expression that would be listened to.

“You sure about that?”

Slight and subtle, it was a move only Joell would see and, more importantly, feel. Rena rubbed her thighs together around his hand before parting to let him proceed. It came with the part of her lips, a breath made deep to hide its false shaking and the slightest arch to her back.

Heady brown eyes made their observations of her, pleased by the products of his teasing, or so he considered them. With the hint of a smile hooking the corner of his mouth, Joell flicked his gaze to Arin.

The power of suggestion was a subtle art.

It was Rena that brought the conversation back to the spoken word.

“Course.”

“Alright…” Arin nodded, as he sat forward with half a grin. His pale gaze snapped to her left. “Joell, you mind gettin’ the uh, the western shipment out from the back?”

To stop Joell’s face from betraying him, Rena rolled her hips forwards and disguised it as a shift in her seat. His lips parted, then rose with a smirk, at the heat between her legs and the thighs holding him to it as she rocked gently.

“Joell?”

He gave her a firm stroke as he withdrew his hand and cleared his throat. “Yep, I’ll go get it.” Joell leant forwards as he stood and spoke with his inherent throaty tone. “Be right back.”

The hint of a game glint in her eye was one that kept brought his smile to the fore yet again. The scents of a sawmill wafted past her once more before he stepped out of the alcove and into the lodge proper. Her gaze followed him. She used it to check on Talcott once again. Still there. Still breathing.

Bathed in cool shadows and dark tones, the low rumble of men’s voices and dice being rolled, the alcove was only a little quieter than the rest. The relative privacy was respected, despite being in plain view.

“Where’s it headed?” Rena kept her eyes loosely on Arin, enough to be natural observation, and tightened the linen binding her, from knuckles to an inch past her wrist.

He cocked his head and took a deep breath before his flirtatious, lilted answer. “Cleigne.”

“Cleigne’s big. Heading up to the Vesperpool or somewhere further south?” She hid her clinical observations behind a neutral, but not blank, expression. The glint of interest in her eye was a composite of very real apprehension. In order for the scales of instinct to weigh risk, gain and that ever-changing value that represented the potential of both, she needed to know a little more.

“Ravatogh.”

Not too far.

“All the way out there?” She raised a brow. “You’ve got some shitty customers.”

“Nah, they ain’t customers. They’re… Associates. Me and Dan go way back,” he said, eyes already beginning to blunt with the memories of another. “Somehow, after everything I’ve done for him, I still owe him a couple favours. That’s the way it always goes. Ya think it’s you, the dog and the acre, then some bastard turns up and says they fed your dog that one time, they didn’t bid against ya in the auction, and before you know it, you owe him.”

Rena snorted a laugh and shook her head. “There’s always one.”

“Ain’t there just?” He gave his rhetoric with a strange tone. It was the bittersweet of burnt sugar, as though he wasn’t entirely opposed to his dealings. His expression sharpened into focus again as the hulking blond appeared in his peripheral. “Ah, here we go.”

With his large hands on shoulders, he brought them to the alcove and left them for his preferred seat. His hand between her legs, cold from outside, was the gearstick for her to control the entire ordeal. It was by no means easy; sitting at that table was harder than driving on ice in the rain. With all the pieces she could control back on their squares of the board, and new elements brought for her inspection, Rena’s gaze flicked to the side.

Small and skinny, they had dark circles around their eyes. The silver blonde of the girl’s hair was gathered into a messy plait as wide eyes fixed on the floor. She shook so hard she seemed to stand still in her own blur. The boy only came up to her shoulder, with large, dark eyes and a tremble to his lip. His short, dull, brown hair was continuously tugged by scraped little hands.

Her eyes shifted back to Arin.

“What’s the gig?”

“Simple. Deliver ‘em to the Rock, pick up the receipt, which’ll be waitin’ for ya, then hightail it back here for a payday. They’ve been waitin’ a while for these ones. Hard to find kids these days. She was quite the biter, if I remember correctly,” he lowered his voice to a growl. The girl kept her mouth clamped shut and eyes on the stained, scraped floorboards.

Easy, her mind said, without hesitation.

“Pass.”

“Oh, c’mon… Somebody got herself a lil moral compass put in? You be careful Joell, she’ll make an honest man of ya.”

“Wouldn’t be opp-.”

“I’d have to feed them,” she reasoned.

“Not if you get ‘em there fast enough.” Arin gave a serpentine grin with sweet excuse.

“Yeah?” Rena raised her brow before she knitted them together with the scraps of consideration lying about in her mind. “And where exactly’s there?”

“No point in tellin’ ya if ya don’t plan on goin’…” Arin teased in a singing voice. At Rena’s unmoved expression, he couldn’t resist the urge to divulge. The fact she was still at the table told him she was listening. “Couple cans of fuel, ‘nough of them lil tickets for a few months, maybe some meds. We’ll make it worth your while… You’re right about feedin’ ‘em though. Better condition they are when they turn up, better review I get from the receipt, better you get paid.”

“It’s easy darlin’,” Joell said, smooth and deep as cream.

The response Arin saw was intent focus and the slightest twitch to her bottom lip, while Joell smirked and tilted his chair back to give the rest of the lodge a casual scan. What he didn’t see was the hand that had just slipped into her jeans. Joell hid his descent in a subtle motion when he leant forwards again.

The corner of Arin’s mouth curled into a wry smile.

“Eli? Care to give our dear associate a map?”

Twitching around his pile of papers, stained to the knuckles and the corner of his mouth blackened by that dark, tamed ichor, Eli jerked bolt upright in his seat. In a series of frantic movements, all skill and no desperation, he stood from the table and grabbed the boy.

He started to cry.

“No, no, no! I-I didn’t do anything-no!”

Eli slammed the boy’s temple onto the table and hauled his ragged shirt over his head. Shiv in one hand, and the small neck in the other, he began to draw. The boy screamed high and raw, fighting to escape the blade as it carved a map into his skin. Little hands scrabbled to escape. Blood dripped from his back and pooled on the table. It followed the paths of small ribs. Those fragile bones were the cage to lungs that defied their size with the sound they could make, and the tiny heart that burning in his chest. Small, round eyes were huge and poured tears as he stared at Rena.

She looked back.

A final rip of the blunt knife through his skin made him howl. Eli tugged him from the bloodied table and let him go. He shook too hard to stand. The boy crumpled in a heap on the floor, crying out again as he stretched and tore his wounds, before he curled into a ball and tried to keep quiet.

Rena’s eyes followed him, watched the girl crouch to stay with him, and used it to disguise yet another check on her own.

Talcott was motionless, eyes wide and mouth clamped shut as he stared at the boy. He caught her gaze by chance and turned back to the bar. It was then he took his first sip of the smoky, sour liquor.

There was still chatter in the lodge, keeping to its quiet rumble as they all minded their own business, out of respect and calloused nonchalance. Exposure made the shock gentler. A few dark laughs had clouded in darker corners as Eli returned to the table, stabbed his bloody shiv into the wood and continued to rifle through his papers, licking blood and ink alike as he wet his fingers to turn the pages.

“So… There’s your map. There’s your cargo… What d’ya say?” Arin coaxed, as if it weren’t even a question; a mere formality.

“Pass.”

“What?!”

“I’ll get paid less for the damage. Damage I didn’t do.”

Something dark and smoky passed through his features then. It curled around his neck and whispered in his ear with a silver tongue. “They were gonna mark him up anyway- her, too. They’re awfully good at findin’ their runaways, and anybody who comes across ‘em knows exactly where to send ‘em back to.”

Rena’s continued silence was broken by one calm gesture. She wrapped her hand around the lambskin leather hilt of her knife; a move that had Joell withdrawing his hand subtly, until it rested in his own lap. This was the crossroads. From here, she could accept the deal or walk away. Arin held the dry, cracked leather of his own. Bound through hide, steel and the table between them, this was the altar of the deal; the precipice. They could part with agreement tying them, or they could sever the association.

“C’mon now, what d’ya say?” He tilted his head. Arin’s smile was genuine and for all the wrong reasons. “I’ll make it worth your while… Even throw Joell in, and we know how much you love him. You’d have gas, food, meds, and a nice big cock to keep ya happy till the sun rises. What more could a lady want?”

“Insurance. I-.”

“Now, you know I can’t-.”

“Fuck’s sake Arin, I know better than to ask up front. I want half. My pick. Especially if I’m getting paid on condition,” she said, giving a pointed look to the children as they shook together.

“Why in-?”

“The more I get paid, the more you get paid. Might give me that little bit of fuckin’ motivation to pick a few things up for you on the way back.”

“You…” He shook his head gravely before breaking into a grin. He kept one hand on his knife as he pointed at her with the other. “See, now this is why you’re one of my favourites. I make you a deal, and you just sweeten it up for me. I get twenty of those bastards every week, asking for jobs and then tryin’ to shove their price up and for what? You shove it up alright, but ya make it so worth it. Wish there were more of ya.”

Arin interrupted himself with a short, high laugh.

“Hell, maybe I oughta send Joell home with ya. Set myself up a little contingency plan. He’d have a kid in you by the time the week was out, wouldn’t ya, big guy?”

He wasn’t listening. Joell had leant back in his chair and stared at the centre of the lodge. It had fallen silent. Still. The darkness that pooled in that building was the type to shroud brighter things. Sharper. Arin’s mirth fell into a frown before he followed the blond’s hard focus. With her hand still on her knife, Rena turned her head then followed with her eyes.

He was alone and surrounded. Completely still, save for the motion of his breathing as it pushed the faded, moss-green t-shirt taut, then let it fall loose and drape. Arms loose at his sides, ink broadened as it led to the rolled sleeves of the old, red flannel. Stubble overgrown into a short beard and some of his hair gathered in a tiny bun at the back of his head, Gladio stood and waited.

The moment Arin stood from the table, knife in hand, Rena wrenched her own from the wood and kept it close. Move too fast and the cost would be high. She stayed in her seat as Arin flounced to the empty centre of the lodge.

“Well… Look who we have here,” he grinned.

Arin raised his voice until its shallow echoes drowned in the dark cedar holding the place up. He drew level with Gladio, a good six inches shorter, and began to circle. Like any scavenger, he took his bites of the carcass as it still stood and breathed, as long as it remained still enough.

“If I ain’t mistaken, and I most certainly am not, this here’s the fella that got us all into this mess. Ya hear that, boys?”

As Arin spoke, Rena shifted her legs to the side of her chair and made to move. A large hand held her elbow, not quite crushing but enough to make her stop. Joell’s stubble brushed her ear.

“You wanna sit this one out, darlin’.”

With one flick of her wrist, she had her knife positioned between her, the clip point fierce over his belly.

“Careful. You might give me a fright.”

“Oh, me? Wouldn’t dream of it-.” His voice tensed and hoarsened as she pushed the knife, enough for him to feel it through his shirt.

Rena’s voice came low and toneless. “Let it go, Joell.”

She angled her knife down so that the point threatened his crotch. He gulped, then loosened his grip.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She hummed a quick and quiet approval before she shouldered her rucksack in silence and began through the shadows of the lodge. Rena made no attempts to hide; there was no point. There were eyes everywhere. Free to move her own, she flicked them to Talcott. Still at the bar. Still threatening to crush the glass in his hand. Still breathing, more importantly.

Gladio stood, feet planted in place, and looked blankly ahead as Arin made his circle tighter and tighter, drawing around him like a snake as his taunts took on all the artistry of his craft; negotiation.

“See now, if I remember correctly, you only had… Let me see… One job to do.”

Rena moved away from the edge of the room, lined by battered tables and a few worn benches, and stepped into the rectangle defined by the dark cedar pillars on one side, the alcove at the other, the bar, and the doors. Earthen eyes fixed on hers, and she held things only he’d understand. Her gaze didn’t send words, but gestures. Comforts. The slip of fingers between his own and the press of foreheads; the closeness that made assurances. The type that apologised for pain, even if they hadn’t caused it.

He held her gaze as she stepped closer and stopped Arin in his tracks with mere presence. He scoffed a laugh and made his circle even tighter, pulling the snare around Gladio.

“Well, shit! If it ain’t his bitch, coming out to keep him safe,” he sang. “Too late, sweetheart. Y’all might think you’re big dogs… but you walked right into the wolf’s den on this one.”

Bitter laughter, as dark and dry as the mildew and grime that lined the walls, rumbled from the surrounds.

Neither looked at him. They stayed locked on each other, a few feet apart and completely still. If she’d taken two steps forward, her shoulder would’ve been beside his own as they faced opposite directions.

“In fact, I’m willin’ to bet that when he was supposed to be off savin’ the prince, he was too busy emptying his ballsack! Ain’t that right, now?”

Gladio’s jaw clenched but he kept his eyes on hers. Another round of laughter, harsh and dark as the lines that defined that dim space and made them fluid within it. They were drops of ink in water, transient and slowly losing themselves to the mass; such was existence.

“All those years, thousands of proud service to the godsdamned crown… But hey! There’s a screw-up in every family, right? Just so happened that since he screwed up we’ve been eatin’ shit and sleepin’ with one eye open. All because mister-big-city-boy here couldn’t hold his dick, let alone a sword. But don’t worry! It ain’t all your fault! If only your momma had kept her legs shut for another day! Things mighta been different!”

Gladio’s focus fell to the floor, unable to hold even Rena’s gentle stability.

“We coulda-.”

She slammed Arin against a pillar hard enough to make it shake, knife to his throat, and glared at him.

As though the entire building was the maw of a sharp beast, blades showed themselves from the darkness like bared teeth. Humour had evaporated from the air but the sinister edge that had allowed it to grow and blossom was the darkness of soil, and it remained in that lodge. The growl of seats being shoved and stands being taken had only just fallen silent when Arin let out an amused laugh.

“Aww… See, now that’s cute!” He lowered his voice from his performance and fixed on her with eyes paler than the glassy steel in her hand. “Thinkin’ ya can win this one, sweetheart? Ya really didn’t think this one through.”

Heavy feet had been silent but the blur in her peripheral gave him away. Rena’s left hand shot out, bound as it gripped a red leather handle and a dark, curved blade to Joell’s throat. Another high, single beat of laughter left Arin.

“Ha! Now where the hell were you hidin’ that one?”

Joell pressed forwards. Without taking her eyes from Arin, Rena tilted the knife until the edge made blood bead on amongst skin and stubble. He stopped when Arin spoke again, his voice full of a thief’s fascination. Curiosity for the purpose of attainment.

“That’s glaivesteel,” he lilted.

Rena’s eyes didn’t leave his, even as they flicked between hers and the knife. “From a friend.”

“Yeah? He give you it before or after you killed him?”

A smirk that seemed passed to each that held that knife teased at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll let you choose.”

“That’s where you’re right… I’m the one makin’ the decisions ‘round here,” Arin nodded as much as he could with the edge against his throat. He raised his voice above its serpentine whisper. “Joell?”

Steel flashed in the corner of her eye. Something moved in her peripheral. She spun and delivered a punishing fist to his throat. Joell fell onto his knees, choking on his own windpipe.

Arin made his escape. With Rena distracted, he shoved out past her. He got two steps away before she grabbed him by the collar, slammed him back against the pillar and held his hand over his head. She pinned it there until only the red leather showed from his palm. Arin screamed behind gritted teeth and kicked.

“Bitch!”

He was silenced by the hunting knife at his throat again. Rena fixed him with a hard stare and a set in her jaw.

“I’ll take the deal.”

Arin gritted his teeth and glared at her. He growled like the pinned creature he was. “Good, but ya sure as hell ain’t getting’ half right now.”

“Then I want numbers.”

A different frown took over his face, confused and pained as blood trickled down from his palm, tracing a path over the paled skin. “What?! The fuck you think-?”

“Numbers.” She pressed the hunting knife against his throat until the edge hid under his skin and stubble, ready to bite. “If you know what you’ve got, and knowing you, you fuckin’ will, then I know you’ve got enough to pay me. None of that well a couple is two shit. Give me numbers.”

“You’re-.”

She began to draw the knife across, just enough for it to grate and pull a bloody thread from his skin.

“Alright, alright! Shit! You uh-, four cans of fuel- full cans! Eli! How many ration cards can we give her?” He threw his voice as though it were a lifeline.

“How ‘bout none?”

“ELI.”

“Maybe twenty?”

Rena pressed the knife and her price with it.

Arin’s voice began to shake. “Eli can you fuckin’ count or some shit?”

“Alright forty! Fuck!”

“There- there! Forty ration cards and… Shit, what else was there?”

“Meds.”

“Meds! Yeah! Uhh, we got a couple bottles! Antibiotics, potions, you-your pick! You can take your pick! Twenty items, they’re yours!” He tried to nod and cement his sincerities as she stared him down. He may have been an inch taller, but he’d shrunken given the circumstances. Pain and panic began to fuse in his veins. He panted as he paled. “Wh-wha-what d’ya say? We got ourselves a deal? Huh?”

She watched him for another moment, calm and hard. He flinched when she moved. Rena pulled his knife from the floorboards it had fallen and stabbed into, and her own from his throat.

Rena took a step back in silence as he stayed in place, held by fear. Panting as he kept his eyes screwed shut, he was jolted by her next move. She had turned her head to the children in the alcove, the only children for miles, and whistled sharper than any blade in the room. Wide-eyed and horrified, they stood stock still.

She stepped back towards Arin and held the knife that had pinned him from his palm. Blood poured in metallic velvet.

“Deal.”

Rena tore it from his hand, turned on her heels and walked. She left the door open behind her as Talcott, Gladio and the two small, scrappy children followed her out into the darkness.

She whistled again, two notes, and Ochre came barrelling through the woods with his hackles high at the scent of blood. Gladio went on ahead as Talcott drew level with her. Before he had the chance to speak, she handed him Arin’s knife and began to wipe her own on the linen binding her hands.

“Did you see how I did it?”

“Not really… Not all of it.”

“Good,” she said quietly, almost gentle. Rena shook her head as she spoke, before taking longer strides to catch up with Gladio. “Because that is not how you fuckin’ do it.”

She drew level with him and send Ochre ahead again with a flick of her hand. Neither looked at each other; they were both too busy trying to readjust to the darkness. Even just a little time in a brighter light could make it hard to see the real world again. The harshness of bare branches and dead soil.

“What’s going on?” Her tone was low and soft but had a curiosity that implied she would’ve preferred to go uninterrupted.

He glanced over his shoulder at Talcott, and the two ragged beings herded between them, and made his voice quiet, no louder than the rustle of dried, autumn leaves none had known for years.

“Later. When we get back.” Gladio looked at her for a moment as they walked and met her eyes. “Alright?”

“Are you?”

His answer would be her own.

Gladio watched her for another moment, before he turned his focus on the close horizon and walked through the waste of it all.

* * *

“Stay still.”

He bit back a whimper and tried hard. Too hard. It made him shake more. Sharp breath was drawn when she smoothed the yellowish, waxy poultice over the final slice through his back.

All Rena could smell was salt. Different kinds of salt. Salt from sweat, salt from tears, salt she’d put in the water to clean his wounds and salt from the thin soup she’d scraped together to feed them.

A small sob left him as her thumb pushed the warm clay mix into his skin.

“Nearly done,” she said, without looking up.

The barrel in the corner of the room was three quarters full of water and had long gone cold. It was better than nothing. The girl surfaced again, pale hair soaked as she tried to work tried to work some of the knots from it with her fingers. Both had showing ribs and a peculiar, slightly potbellied nature that defied spindly limbs.

The room stank of woodsmoke from the small fire set in the corner and the reek of burnt hair. The boy’s freshly shaven head didn’t have anything crawling over it anymore. There was nothing but a few nicks from when he’d jumped, small scabs and round ears amongst the close stubble.

The door opened. The girl immediately ducked into the barrel with a sharp gasp and went silent. Rena’s eyes flicked to the doorway and the lanky shape that had slipped into the room.

“It’s alright, she won’t bite,” Rena assured.

Legs appeared at her side before they bent into a crouch and pale arms crossed over the rips in her jeans. With her black hair cut short at the sides and long enough to stand in small tufts over the top of her head, the most notable feature on Iris was still her eyes. Large, round and an impossibly warm brown, a few shades darker than her brother’s, they were the type to show every thought, no matter how brief. That was both a help and a hindrance.

She clenched her fine jaw and squeezed at her gut.

“Do we have anymore linen?”

Rena spoke without taking her eyes from the boy.

“It’s still going?”

“Mhm,” Iris grunted before she leant to sit on her hip and winced.

“Arms up,” she prompted, tapping his bony elbows until they raised above his head. They were the thin limbs of a young tree, too weak to stay up for long. As she knelt on the floor behind him, Rena began to hold stretches of bandage, cut to span the width of his back and kept them in place with small swatches of duct tape either side.

“It’s a long one.”

“Haven’t had in a while,” she said, idly massaging her lower belly.

“That’s because you weren’t eating enough,” Rena said, taping the final piece before she picked up the roll of bandage at her side. She wrapped it around her hand twice, then stopped. “Heavy?”

“Nah, it’s starting to slow down.”

“Alright,” she nodded, wrapping the linen twice more before she sheared it off with her knife. Rena handed the small bundle to Iris.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Mhm.”

Iris stood and left the room, cheeks puffed at the biting cramps that dominated her sensations. Rena gave the boy’s back another glance before she tapped him on the shoulder.

“Alright, you’re done. Get some sleep. And you,” she said, fixing her eyes on the girl. “Get dried and-.”

“Lyra.”

They were both still for a moment, before the girl’s small, sweet voice fell to a mumble.

“M… My name’s Lyra,” she said again, eyes fixed on the floor before she glanced up to darker hues than her own. She recoiled to find them closer. Rena stood a few feet from the barrel, side on to the young girl, and held out the swathe of rough, cream fabric to her.

“Well, Lyra, get dried, get dressed and get some sleep, alright?”

The small hand with broken nails reached for the cloth slowly. Large eyes flicked between it and Rena’s.

“It’s alright, just don’t snatch it.”

Lyra chewed her bottom lip and grasped it in a soft grip before Rena let go. She clambered out of the barrel and wrapped the thick fabric around herself. After a quick sniff, careful eyes watched. Rena filled a small steel cup with water from the barrel and poured it over the tiny fire until it was doused. Freshly thrown back into the darkness of the small room with rotten boards defining the walls, Lyra tried to track her through sound. It wasn’t until the door creaked open that she knew where Rena had gone.

“Wait, what’s your-.”

The door closed gently.

Rena swept her hair back with one hand, then let it weigh heavy on the back of her neck. She stretched as she walked, and only opened her eyes in time to see Iris walking towards her.

“Better?” She raised a brow.

Iris sighed and nodded. “Better.”

“Alright… You boiling the old one now?”

“Yup,” Iris said, teeth clenched at the bloody rag she held gingerly between finger and thumb. Rena held up the small steel tins she’d used to prepare the poultice and the two bigger mugs used for soup.

“Mind giving these a wash?”

“Sure,” she almost chirped as she took the steel. Whilst Iris’ voice had retained its sweetness, the melody was gone. She spoke less, quietly and laughed as often as the rest of them.

“Thanks.”

They went their separate ways. As Rena made her way towards the other end of the L-shaped cabin, she passed through what had once been the main living area. For now, Talcott was flat on his back with his hat over his face and Ochre’s head on his stomach, mapping the gentle rise and fall as he slept with an empty mug falling from his hand. Rena rubbed her eyes and slipped into the small room at the other end.

She hid a yawn behind her wrist and tried to force the sensation of grime and grease from her skin. Weeks had made them all rougher and left them covered in a fine layer of filth. There was only so much lukewarm water could do on its second, fifth or ninth use. She huffed a laugh through her mind at the thought of soap. How they used to have the audacity to choose a scent for their skins.

Skin just smelled like skin nowadays. It smelled like sweat, dirt, leather and blood. Sickness could be found by a sour sweetness. At first, it was as though they’d all forgotten what humans smelled like. Dogs have their own scent, cats too. Humans, in their desperation to be more than animals tormented by the infinities of their own minds, had pared themselves away from all other living things. Over the last few years, they’d become one of the few living things that remained.

Choice was a luxury.

She could smell him. Sweat, musk… Gods, she could almost smell the size of him. With her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could make him out at the end of the bedroll. Knees bent and flat on his back, his breathing was far too deep for him to be asleep. Rena stifled a yawn behind her wrist and heard his own stretch him in response. She lowered herself onto her own thin, ragged bedroll and sat with her legs crossed, the rucksack nestled on them.

After a few moments in silence, as she sorted through the bag and stashed her supplies, Gladio took a deep breath that could only signal a beginning. Rena beat him to it.

“So… Why exactly did you need to come get me? Iris is fine, you’re fine. What’s going on?” she asked gently.

“Talcott.”

She stopped, hands dropped into her lap as she looked at his profile in the limited light.

“He said he’d told you.”

“Nope,” Gladio sighed. “Came back in from taking a piss and he was gone. Gave him half an hour, then figured that was either one hell of a shit, or he’d gotten himself into trouble.”

“Trouble’s right.”

“D’you give him a hard time?”

Rena shook her head and packed away all but the last of her narrow linen strips. She began to peel the ones she’d worn for a week away. Damp skin clung to the fabric and split gently until her fingers were warm with blood.

“Not hard enough.”

“What about the kids?”

“They’ve had hard enough,” she mused darkly, eyes heavy as she began to bare the other hand.

Gladio took a deep breath with measured care before he spoke. “Rena-.”

“I’m not taking them,” she said with finality. His silence gave her room to expand. “They’re meant for Ravatogh.”

“Again?”

“Mhm.” She gritted her teeth and hissed as she poured cold, salted water over her knuckles.

“Pieces of shit,” he muttered, just above a whisper but she heard it. He gave his voice its usual quiet roughness when he continued. “What’s the plan?”

“Pff… They’re going to Lestallum. Then I’ll go to the Rock, deal with things there, get the receipt-.”

“Wait a second, when you say deal-.”

“Gladio, they’re fuckin’ sick. Do you know how many times they’ve tried to make me take that deal? Every fuckin’ time, and it’s not just Arin’s guys. World’s got enough shit in it, it won’t miss them.”

He sat up and locked eyes with her. “Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

“Yeah? And walking into a bar full of them, showing your face, that was a good idea, was it?”

Rena’s tone didn’t hold irritation or contempt; it was the sigh after the missed shot. She had been so close to keeping it clean and making her deal without drawing blood.

“Walking into a camp full on your own is a shitty idea.”

“I don’t know, I do alright on my own,” she shrugged. Gladio didn’t miss a beat before he sighed raggedly and shook his head.

“World’s harder than it was.”

“World’s a heap of shit Gladio. Lucis, especially. It’s a kicked dog that refused to lick its wounds. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never known people to stop kicking just because you went down.”

Already low, Gladio had been wearing the heavy cloak of darkness for years and people still kicked. It had soaked with his tears, at first, then dried hard, sweltering. Time had given him one gift; blunting. As a pendulum held high then let go swings with fervour at first, then wanes to be controllable, Gladio’s mind and soul had been thrown loose at first, then reined in. Self had been the tether that fate had cut. Gladio had always read or been told that fate was a thread or three women weaving. He’d begun to think fate was a knife that cut pieces until there the only path left led to the end.

The years hadn’t been kind, but time had been patient.

He gave a rough sigh and spoke with finality. “Four days.”

“A week.” She made her demand gently. “C’mon, give me a little more credit-.”

“It’s not about what I think you can or can’t do, I know you can,” Gladio assured her, voice hoarse in the quiet. “But-.”

“And it’ll take me two days to get to Lestallum with those two, assuming they don’t pull anything stupid.”

He watched her for a moment and silently damned her stubbornness, though that and little else had kept them all alive. Eyes full adjusted to the darkness of the room, they fixed on each other. Gladio followed her lines again. Years had made her harder. That only made the softness of time alone that much more obvious. He was sure her eyes would never change. They’d always be as dark and careful as she was.

She had a smudge on her cheek. Without another thought, he licked his thumb and rubbed it away.

“A week,” he conceded. “Then I’m coming to get you.”

The warmth of her hand, and the rare bareness of it, against the back of his neck shouldn’t have been enough to make him want to melt and be soft, as malleable as wet clay. He leant closer as she kissed his temple, then pressed her forehead to it.

“Thank you.”

He grumbled in response. They let themselves be in the quiet togetherness; the solitude of two. They were so careful of disturbing it that even their breaths fell silent. All but the soft ticking of his watch remained. That prompted another thought that made Gladio’s brows pinch together.

“How long d’you want?”

“Three, four hours. Not long.”

“You don’t trust ‘em already?”

“Mh-mh,” she hummed a negative. “Don’t know how long Arin had them, or who had them before.”

He pressed a kiss to her cheek and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’ll keep an eye on the other two.”

Rena hummed again settled down beside him. Earthen eyes fell shut at the softness of lips against his neck. The two were careful of their hands, and more so of their intentions. Fingers twined with counterparts or in thick, dark hair. Gladio had to fight to stay awake as she drifted off. He could hear her breathing change, feel as she curled in on herself to guard the most vulnerable parts, and the sense that came on every rare occasion she slept before him. Peace was soft and delicate, easily broken or bruised. It flooded from her with the warmth of her skin, seeping into him until he felt himself dip into consciousness.

Gladio regretted standing up as soon as he’d done it. He gave her one last check, just in time to see her hand move to guard the back of her neck and slipped from the room. Talcott was still fast asleep. Iris had curled up in the corner and used her backpack as a pillow. He took a seat on a small, creaky wooden chair and flicked his knife out from his belt. Gladio fell into the time marked by a ticking watch, the song of a stone over steel, and nothing else.

Enduring a darkness of his own creation alone was always hardest, and he damned it for seeming a rightful penance.

* * *

“They say he comes for little children, hiding in his skin…”

Sepe was an old expert at the raconteur’s lilt. With six children gathered on the floor in front of him,  one in his lap while others hung from their bunks and listened with wide eyes of every shade, he told the tale.

“He walks around and looks like anyone else, like any other man, except…HUGE! I’ve heard some say he’s seven feet tall and others say bigger! Built like a house!”

A chorus of small gasps left the brood. Sepe grinned at his audience’s response and carried on.

“Any little one could get lost in the dark,” he reasoned, fighting the grin away for a concerned frown as he looked around. “All it takes is two too many steps out of your bed and before you know it, you’ve no idea where you are, or where to go. That’s when he finds them. He tells them he’ll show them the way, bring them back home… but he doesn’t.”

Small mouths hung open. With a head of black ringlets, once swarthy skin paled by the years, and a glint in his eye that was matched by the small, gold hoop through his ear, Sepe was already an interesting character. When he took a turn to devise a character of his own, he was quite able to convince his gaggle of enthralled listeners and string them along as he spun his yarn.

“He leads them to a dark, dripping alleyway, and in the dark he takes off his skin, piece by piece, by little bleeding piece, until there’s nothing but metal! A huge suit of armour with horns and a sword bigger than me!”

A few frightened cries left the ones old enough to understand but not old enough to recognise it was just a story, whilst others leaned closer for the thrill of being horrified. Sepe cast his dark eyes over the small crowd and withheld a strange grin. He had them, and he knew it.

“Wh-what happens next?”

“Oh, what happens next? What happens next?!” he cried in mock dismay. Sepe shook his head and focused on the one curiosity had lured. “He… SPEARS THEM WITH HIS SWORD AND EATS THEM ALIVE!”

High screams made Rena wince as she leant in the doorway, arms folded. The children all scrambled for their bunks, often two to one, and hid under the nobbled covers.

“A bit far, dear,” Mollie tapped his shoulder with the back of her hand. “I don’t think they’ll sleep at all, now.”

“Maybe,” he cocked his head before he stood and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “But they won’t get out of bed.”

Mollie shook her head and led from the room. Rena followed, but Sepe stayed behind to drive home his point.

“Now remember, stay in bed, or the old captain’ll get you!”

He followed, content with his evening theatrics, and picked up a ledger to write the new additions into their care. In the small kitchen of the house-turned-orphanage, Rena shouldered her rucksack and took a deep breath. Even inside, the air was laced with the stink of Lestallum, of steam and sewage, though in Mollie and Sepe’s kitchen to the rear of the building, sullen ration-issue coffee and onions permeated the crumbling walls.

“You’re lucky, you know.”

Rena hummed a question and raised an eyebrow as Mollie appeared at her side, arms folded. Still plump and beginning to swell with her fourth child, her cheeks were heavy. The warm, chocolate brown eyes were still the same though. Rena met them, and as every time, was back in the cabin in Cleigne. To be precise, she was at the bottom of the porch in the pouring rain, staring up as somebody said goodbye.

“Your timing couldn’t have been better. There was something nasty going around about a week ago, but it’s calmed down now. Lost eight of them, Six rest their souls,” Mollie trailed off as she shook her head. Rena tightened the belt around her thigh and stood true to her height again, a good head taller than her sister.

“Yeah, well. Better off here than somewhere else,” she said. Rena put her hand on the doorknob and looked around the room again. “Right, I’d better get going. Take care, alright?”

“You take care. I don’t know where the hell you’re going, but it’s not good to go alone.”

“Nah, trust me. It’s better I’m alone on this one.”

“I’m surprised he let you go,” she tilted her head and raised a brow. Rena’s fell into a frown.

“Get fucked, you sound just like her.”

“She’s not as bad as she used to be, y’know,” Mollie said gently as she swirled a cup of watery coffee. “You should-.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t say, you haven’t seen them in-.”

“No.”

“Renata.”

The warning in those three syllables was enough to make her let go of the doorknob as though it had burned her. Mollie leant into her line of sight and waited for green eyes to meet her own. Mollie saw what she assumed had always been there; reluctance. She’d known it too, at first, but had given enough chances to have her hopes proved right. Rena had always been the type to be bitten by a dog and never approach it again.

Rena was the type to learn, and fast.

“I know you’re probably not keen, but they’d love to see you. It’s been so long, Rena, you have no idea what it’s like. Every time we visit, he keeps asking for you and I don’t know what to tell him anymore.”

“No, c’mon, don’t use dad against me.”

“I’ll use whatever I have to, as long as you get your ass down there and come see them.” She laughed, but there was sincerity in her tone. “Come on- we’ll go as well, so that it’s not just you.”

Rena kept her eyes on the doorknob and her hand wrapped around it. After a few moments under quiet scrutiny, she sighed and opened her mouth to offer her verdict.

“We’re heading down just after New Year, you should come then. Rena, please.”

“Fine,” she submitted. Dark eyes that were already regretting the decision made behind them met the joy in her sister’s. There was something stirring in Rena. Instinct had dug its heels in and still been hauled to run with her.

“You hear that Sepe?”

“Loud and clear,” he chuckled.

“Fuck’s sake, that’s it. I’m going, I’m out. See you when I see you… Good fuckin’ gods…”

“Auntie Rena!”

A child ran full force into her, enough to knock some of the air from her lungs and wrapped her arms around Rena’s waist.

“You can’t leave! You didn’t say goodbye!”

“Alright, fine. I’ll see you later,” Rena assured, playing with the thick plait of black hair. Nina pouted and frowned, an expression that made her look far too much like her mother. It broke when Rena tickled under her ear with the end of the plait.

“S-stop- stop it!”

“Yeah? Well, let go, I’ve got work to do,” Rena teased. Nina gave her a final squeeze before she stepped away and folded her hands behind her back with a huff.

“You gonna go kill the monsters again?”

Rena had stepped out and held the door open for another second before she tilted her head. She nodded.

“Yeah… Something like that.”


	26. Darkening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returned from a mission, Rena meets with the reactions of the groups and is once again reminded of her role in their survival, even after her time is over.

Sweat poured down his forehead. He could feel it snag in his beard and trickle down his throat. The t-shirt was soaked and clung to his form with every breath. Its grip had nothing on the fist in his hair. Gladio reached back, grabbed whatever fabric met his hand first, and hauled her forwards.

Iris rolled from the fall and sprang back to her feet in time to make a strike. He guarded. The broadsword’s weight was instinctive. Though it was in hand less than was right, it was a part of him. Drawing it from a still armiger held challenge, even years later. The smoky waters were beyond calm, they were numb. He was never sure if his hand was truly feeling through that darkness until the weapon flashed into his hand.

Iris fought with a lance, and she fought well. The point of it tapped underneath his chin.

His own blade batted it to the side. It came back, but he blocked. Iris lunged forwards. He caught her elbow and tugged her forwards. When round eyes narrowed in a snarl met him again, he blocked a half-baked strike and forced the lance away again. Light but quick, she darted to the side and made for the opening he’d left.

“Ah! Hey,” he grumbled. Gladio hit the end of the lance away from his ribs and smoothed the already aching ribs. The fresh hole in an already ragged shirt was far from welcome.

Something moved in his peripheral; a bright, blurred veil through the darkness. He held up his sword and guarded without thought. He blocked her strikes before she’d prepared them in their entirety. Left, right, left, left, low. Steel grated against steel before he pushed her away. Iris stumbled back.

“That’s enough,” he said with a nod. “For now.”

Iris struck again. He stepped to avoid the leap and met the high arc of the lance. Both panting as sweat dampened once tanned skins that still held their warm tone, Gladio’s frown was one Iris knew all too well.

“Enough.”

Iris glared at him, then eased her force from the lance and stabbed it into the ground a few feet away. She leant back against a tree and slid until she was crouched by the trunk. He’d sounded so much like their father. She wondered if he’d heard it too. The way he kept his eyes down and cast his sword back in a blinding flash of pale blue made her sure he had.

Chest heaving, she shook her head. He’d done this every time. Gladio always chose when and how to end their spars, and it usually involved a firmness she’d decided only men could display. Stern, dignified and final. It was a small phenomenon; one she’d observed since she was small but big enough to sneak around the Citadel and pry. Curiosity is a strong motivator. That, and the type of observation that could make her nerves fizz, her heart beat so fast she could hear it in the room, no louder than a butterfly that had escaped her flipped stomach.

She still felt a twinge at blue eyes. Over the years the nerves at that wound had either become too damaged they couldn’t feel, or the skin so calloused and thick that no knife could truly pierce it. They could still threaten, and they still did.

Iris hated that it still hurt. Not only had he been gone for years, but he’d never been meant for her. That much was decided by the same hands that had taken a life with as much potential as a wad of clay and shaped it so that he should be prince. He’d been cast to serve his function, and she her own.

A flower can be grown in a pot, but it cannot fuse with the ceramic. There were planes of existence and they were not on the same one. Close enough to see each other, but just that little too far to reach and climb.

If she hated that it still hurt, Iris loathed that she’d hated others because of it. That any girl that brushed his arm or caught his gaze for no more than was normal, nothing other than observation, was enough to make her boil. That the Oracle Divine had done nothing to earn her wrath, but Iris had blamed her for everything. If she’d never existed, it never would’ve happened.

She knew it was wrong to hate them, that they’d done nothing wrong. She’d hated him at times. But always herself for walking into the glass door over and over, expecting it to open on one of her attempts to break through. The pain of realisation was dull, cold and hard. It was heavy and hard to swallow.

Just as the years had made her brother quiet and reclusive, they’d made Iris realise and accept everything a stubborn persuasion of the heart couldn’t release.

For all those years, Iris had been bathing in a hot spring. It could be scalding, enough to form blisters on her skin, but after a while she’d become anosmic to the reek of sulphurous truth; of pain. The colours of the springs were distracting. They captivated her in deep blues, enough to fascinate her at first and made the heat that ran through her skin addictive as a teenager. The problem was that very little could survive in such an environment. The heat bound her skin to every rock, minerals made her bones heavy, whenever she tried to make an escape. The mists that surrounded those springs made it impossible to conceive of anything else existing in that plane, of anything else being called home.

She hadn’t been expecting the springs to crumble under her feet and leave her as alone and bare as the rest of them. Iris had decided to bear it alone years before. She still bore it alone, though it was something she shared with her brother. The two of them had lost more than just a friend, a prince and pivot of their world. They’d lost parts of themselves. She’d assumed he’d lost his lungs because of how little he spoke for the first month. Iris’ conclusion was that she’d lost her heart, and all rhythm had fallen from the world.

“You keep leaning too much,” Gladio muttered as he pulled the collar of his t-shirt up to dab the sweat on his brow. He flapped the hem to get some air moving, then shouldered into the wrinkled red of the flannel he’d left hanging from the broken bone of a branch.

Iris kept her eyes on the ground and widened them momentarily as she shook her head.

“Then teach me not to.”

“Trying,” he cocked his head and leant to the side to peer at the cabin.

The small fire glowing in the crook of the L-shaped building crackled gently at the twigs that fed it. Dull orange flames set a soft light onto the walls and showed the marks of the years. The paint had peeled long before they’d found it. More recent scars came in the form of scratches made deep and fast through the damp, rotting wood. They’d boarded the windows when they arrived and replaced the damp litter with dry in gutters so that the already bowed roof wouldn’t crush them in their sleep. The key was in making it look as though it were abandoned, though perhaps not. It was a gift and a curse to make their presence known. What warded off the wary often invited the bold.

It was for this same reason that Talcott’s fire was no bigger than a kettle and hidden in a small pit. That warm light made hazel eyes a deeper brown. He had his knees gathered to his chest, one arm folded across them and his chin rested on it as he watched the small fire. Ochre was curled in a mottled ball at his side, with Talcott’s hand lost to the dog’s thick coat.

“Talcott.”

He jerked as though Gladio had snapped his fingers right beside his ear and met the man with large, round eyes, a silent question written in them to answer for his interruption. Gladio raised a brow from his knitted frown.

“You okay?”

Talcott’s eyes shifted sideways as he pressed his mouth into a line and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m fine…” he said quietly, though he wasn’t quite finished. His eyes asked why.

Gladio gave him another moment where hazel hues didn’t quite stay on his, as if to usher him away and return to the privacy of his solitude.

That solitude was an aspect that concerned Gladio. Talcott barely ever talked, and he seldom listened, to Gladio. His brazen wander to follow Rena to the lodge had earned all of them empty stomachs and her absence while she carried out a deal she’d refused time and time again.

Gladio wasn’t sure what had made her accept it on this occasion. His presence had rushed her decision; that much was certain. Perhaps she’d been offered too many children to take to a fate worse than death, and that pair had been the final straw. If he hadn’t known her so well, he’d have thought it was the risk to her pride if she’d walked away empty handed with Talcott to witness her failure.

Gladio started to think it was pride.

Her methods had changed. She’d always been brutal; it had been necessary. Hunting from an early age had forced her to all but purge innocence and childlike tenderness from her. Both her survival and theirs hinged on her ability to scrape what she could from the dying world and keep them fed, dry and somewhat resembling healthy.

The difference was that now she seemed to take liberties. Whilst she hadn’t spent her years at the top, rather alone and somewhere to the side, she’d been untouchable. She’d taken her beatings, as they all had. An unfortunate run in with a few refugees from the city who had taken their losses hard had given them reason to hide.

He couldn’t deny it; she kept them alive, but he was starting to question her means and whether they really were necessary.

Talcott’s despondence whenever she left for more than a few hours gathered in Gladio’s head like dark clouds. While he didn’t know what consequences they’d hold, he knew they’d be there. It weighed heavy and troubled an already troubled mind. In a way, he was grateful for Talcott’s timidity; it would keep him out of the worst of it.

As though to even the scales, Iris bristled whenever Rena left. Strong features became less childlike with every day and took on a boldness. Harsh. She was trying to fill boots that weren’t empty and wouldn’t fit.

Gladio was the only one to witness them change. While she ran off and ran wild, he was left to take care of the two of them. The years had brought a multitude of challenges. Most were simply the fences that had to be crossed to grow up. In days like those, there was no such thing as a gate. Fences were high, topped with razor wire and the spaces between were strewn with landmines. Childhood was no man’s land. Only those quick and careful enough to make it through ever passed to the next trench, the pause for breath before it began again.

It had been too long since Gladio had breathed. He never thought he’d crave solitude, that he’d want to be alone. With every day he spent surrounded, the length of time he thought he’d need got longer and longer, and the guilt he felt for wanting to push away from those he was lucky to still have became heavy and cold.

Gladio let out a ragged sigh and saw his breath cloud in front of him. With few of the usual visual cues to mark the change of seasons, observance was key to being prepared. Winter came fast, stayed long, and was harsher than anyone had known it for years. There was no sun to thaw them free. Even the lights in Lestallum dimmed in the cold, and they were the final bastion of what little they had left.

All other lights had long since gone out.

Ochre broke from his formation as a tightly curled ball and lifted his head. He sniffed twice, then his ear lifted. The dog stood and stretched, chattered his teeth and loped off into the darkness.

He returned a moment later, and with a stray.

She was a ghost with steel in her bones, weeks of dirt on her skin and a bloody lip. Dark eyes in dark sockets made her featureless until she drew closer, weighed down by the very thing that would make their lives easier, if only for a short while. Each hand gripped a dark, dented full tank that sloshed and was tied to another. There was a tiredness to her gait. She’d walked for so long and far that her joints had loosened and threatened to force her to stop simply by falling apart underneath her.

She’d walked anyway.

Gladio saw her first. The feeling wasn’t elation. It wasn’t relief. It was quiet and gave its thanks out of guilt. He hated that he questioned how her eyes could still be gentle after all she’d done. But there was no part of him, no shred however infinitesimal, that didn’t want to kiss her when she gave him half of a bashful, exhausted smile. The confliction kept him still and his eyes kind.

When Ochre darted back to each of them and circled the fire before he shot to her side again, Iris looked up from her perch at the base of a tree and widened her eyes at the haul she’d brought back. Both she and Talcott darted to her side and took the cans of fuel she’d lugged for miles. Rena stretched her shoulders out and swing her rucksack to the front.

“Don’t put them anywhere near that,” she said, without looking up. Both had strayed too close to the fire for her comfort. “They’ll definitely fuckin’ find us then…”

Gladio stepped over but stayed a few feet away from her, arms folded, as the younger two carried them inside. “Definitely gas?”

“Mhm.”

Rena kept her eyes on task as she crouched and pulled bundles from the leather that had been sewn and resewn to keep it together over decades. She stopped, then looked over her shoulder at him. That movement swept her hair over her shoulder and as wild as it was, he could see the dark purple of a bruise that was too big to stay clear of the shirt. His eyes snapped to hers when she spoke.

“How were things here? Everything alright?”

Gladio was struck softly. His mouth shifted around an answer that came on the exhale of a deep breath. “Yeah. Nothing passed. They’re hungry as hell, but they’re okay.”

“Yeah?” She kept her eyes on him and her voice quiet and smooth. “And how were you?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Does,” she said, without hesitation, as she stood, shouldered the bag once more and met eyes. “You’ve been quiet.”

“You’ve been away.”

“Came back.”

Gladio looked at her for another moment, then raised his wrist to read his watch. The charcoal marks on his arm that marked every twelve hours were still bold and scratched against his skin. He spoke without looking up.

“You’re early.”

“Yeah?” She leant closer to peek at the marks and clock dial. “Shit…”

“Five days.” Gladio cocked his head and met her eyes. His raised eyebrow made hers draw together in a curious frown.

“Alright, you win,” she conceded. “What d’you want?”

“What did you have in mind?”

Rena rolled her eyes in innocent jest and quickly rose up to press a kiss to his cheek. The small, quiet warmth of it seeped into him like honey into bread. It made his brows knit and jaw loosen as dark lashes fell shut.

The self-imposed control they’d agreed on slapped his other cheek.

“You stink.”

“Not the only one,” she countered, forearms resting either side of his neck. Rena took a deep, loud sniff to make a point.

“Yeah, but you stink worse,” he nodded, trying to cement his weak excuse into something more solid. The game frown and keen focus made him regret it.

“Good.”

Rena stepped away and he almost cursed her for it. The sway exhaustion put in her hips that would turn to stiffness if she stopped was still one that could hold his attention after years together. Just as she stepped into the cabin, Gladio began to follow and grunted a question.

“Bring anything to eat?”

“Your favourite. Smoked rat that smells like shit and a mushroom that’s probably not poisonous.”

“Mmh,” he hummed dully. Gladio continued in a flat tone. “Delicious.”

“Well, that part’s up to you. You’re on… Dinner…”

The small fire set in the corner of the main room in the cabin already housed a pot over the flames. The blackened sides masked old tin that used the acoustics of the room to arch the scent and sound of frying mushrooms and dark, peaty smoke straight to Gladio and Rena.

Talcott looked up from his creation in progress and beamed before he fought back to a more sheepish smile. “Thought I’d get started. Make myself useful.”

Looming behind her, Gladio raised a brow, both sceptic and impressed. Rena shook her head before she locked on hazel eyes.

“Stop kissing my ass.”

He pressed his smile away, but let it spread at the scent of readying food and the prospect of a full stomach. Rena’s sentiment had gratitude, but she meant it. Decades of independence had made her comfortable with little else. Even the innocent gesture of taking on a task made her itch to do it herself and make sure it was done properly. Surrendering control had never been an option, let alone something she’d choose.

Gladio slipped past her and held his hand out for the bag she’d fished from her rucksack. When she handed it over, the sound of heavy glass clinking against each other, was enough to pique his curiosity. Gladio peered inside the small canvas sack, held closed by a leather drawstring. Dark green bottles full of thick, milky liquid, and others with powder, had him drawing his brows.

“No way…”

“Antibiotics, a couple morphine blends, vitamins…” she listed, shaking her head gently. Rena bit her bottom lip and brought her eyes up to meet his.

Balance is the only thing that can overcome limitation. If a limit is reached and there is something still due to even the sides and accomplish equilibrium, balance will overcome and change the limits.

Gladio hoped, that by some divine act, the balance of lives taken would somehow keep them alive a little longer. The hands she used to take the deal, spill the blood and carry the load were the same she used to fix and feed them. Duality had long been part of her nature and Gladio had been integral to its discovery, though he’d been known to brush it off as carelessness in his rasher moments.

He was distracted from his wonderings by the folded wad of paper she held out to him. Tied with string, a few small orange squares peeked out. The ration cards would be useful if they chose to winter in Lestallum. If not, they could be traded or sold for other supplies that they needed more at the time. Any of it could’ve.

She stifled a yawn behind her hand, ran her fingers through long neglected hair and made for the small room they’d taken.

“I’m gonna go take five.”

“What’s wrong with in here?”

“Too bright,” she dismissed as she nodded to the fire. “Need to go lie down in a dark room for a while.”

“We’ll let you know when it’s ready!” Talcott chirped. They were all glad hear the brightness return to their tone. For this meal, at least, they’d be fed. For the next few hours, they wouldn’t be hungry.

“I’ll smell it burning,” she said, and slipped from the room.

Gladio set himself the task of counting everything. She would’ve, but it never hurt to double check, especially when the mind doing the counting hadn’t stopped for days. Forty ration cards. Four cans of gasoline, all full and all fuel. Eight bottles of vitamin capsules, with I’s and T’s already etched onto four of each. Enough to see them through the winter and keep a cold from putting them in the crosshairs of something harsher. Six with antibiotic powder. Three marked ‘M’ for morphine, and three marked ‘C’; codeine. All that and four days’ worth of food were no small feat and had been hard earned.

He sat back to lean against the wall and stared at the plenty that had been put before him. The cost of them haunted in their shadows. Dark and lurking shapes of men and knives. Gladio tensed his jaw enough for the muscle to ball at the hinge and fixed his eyes on the closed door.

He knew when quiet was too quiet.

A part of him hoped she’d regret it this time. That this would be the last of it. Their other options were few, but they were there. Daemon hunts could involve all of them, take the pressure from her shoulders, but Gladio was beginning to think that weight was an axe and that she enjoyed the splinters and the blood. He’d resented the brutality of birth, of fate and of the world when it fell. There was one brutality he was close to loathing when he’d once respected, appreciated and loved it. He’d understood it, but dark times made it hard to see.

Gladio slipped into the small room and shut the door behind him. That quiet creak and knock of wood against its frame almost hid the sharp breath she took and how still she went afterwards. One hand weighed on the back of his neck as he turned and tried to make her out from the dim. He didn’t expect it to be so easy.

She knelt on the floor and sat on her heels, torso exposed and pale as she stretched to one side. His next breath brought the heavy scent of blood.

“What the hell-?”

“It’s fine,” she cut in. Rena had both hands gathered at the top, right hand side of her stomach. She pressed the skin taut with one, while the other draw close then away with a line too fine to see in this light.

“Bullshit,” he growled.

Gladio crouched as he came closer, tilted his head and held her hands still and away from the wound. Her brows pinched at the unintentional tug he’d put through fresh stitches. The cut was an inch deep and marked the top of a dark, bloody curtain that had spilled down her front as it crossed from the bottom of her left ribcage and swept five inches to the side. The broken chips of poultice she’d ripped out instead of soaking them to make them soft had been abandoned at her side, like broken clay.

He shook his head slowly and ground his teeth. “You need to stop doing this.”

“It’s fine. Let go and give me two minutes, I’ll be done-.”

“No. Rena, you need to stop.”

The pairs of dark eyes locked. They stared at each other from their separate pans in the scale. Without a word, she forced her wrists free of his, pulling at her own stitches to do it, and refocused on the wound.

“It’s fine.”

“You know it’s not.”

“They’re fed for the next few days. They’ve got meds for the next few months,” she maintained. Rena almost tore herself new wounds as she stitched the fresh cut. She finished, plucked her knife from the belt and cut the thick thread. She met his eyes again and tried to dampen the heat in her voice. “It. Is. Fine.”

“Rena…” he warned.

“Alright, it’s not fine!” She whispered harshly. “But it doesn’t matter! It’s done. It’s paid. Can we just let it go?”

The words through gritted teeth had him returning his own with a glare. “I don’t know. Can you?”

She stared at him for a moment and drew a deep breath through her nose, one that tested the new stitches.

“I know you don’t like it, but some of us have to get our hands dirty.”

“There’s a difference between not liking it and it being wrong!” he growled. The last thing they needed was an interruption.

Locked on each other as they knelt on the floor, obstinately refusing the battered, tired bedrolls that were supposed to be a place of peace and rest. Of agreement and rare togetherness. Hard and unforgiving as they were, if enough care was taken they could be warm.

“Since when’s the world been right, Gladio?” Rena shook her head with a different frown, one that made his hard stare difficult to maintain. She made it heavy and he let it fall to the floor. Her next few words made it soft. “I don’t like it either, but I don’t hate it because it keeps us alive. I’d rather it was them than you.”

His eyes flicked back up to hers. There it was. The brutality she’d made no attempt to hide.

Honesty.

Rena shrugged and turned her head to focus as she packed away what few crude tools she’d used to fix herself this time. Struck softly once again, Gladio watched her as he let his mind gather a conclusion. It was as difficult as catching fish in muddy water with his bare hands. Just when he thought he’d had it, that he’d approached carefully enough to lull it still, it would dart off again and leave him drowning in the confusion.

He breathed a ragged sigh, buried a hand in her hair and pulled her head closer as he leant to kiss her cheek. She didn’t fight him, or push away, or even tense. Rena let him. Exhausted eyes let themselves close at the instinctive familiarity of it.

“It still needs to stop.” Gladio shook his head, lips pressed to her temple before he kissed one of her eyelids. “You’re gonna get in some serious shit one day.”

“I’d just have…” Rena yawned, and when she relaxed from it she leant closer and focused on the warmth of his chest. “To wait for you to come get me. If you felt like it…”

“I would,” he assured. Gladio nudged at her face until his forehead was pressed against hers. “I always would.”

“You say that,” she smirked, playing scepticism as a joke.

“You kiddin’? I already give you too much time away. You ever go over that week limit and I’m coming to get your ass.”

Gladio tugged her into his lap and chuckled when she draped around him, too tired to be anything but soft. Her own warm laugh ended with a hum. Rena absently combed her fingers through his hair, working out the knots as she spoke against a cheek covered in overgrown stubble.

“You’ll never guess who I saw in Lestallum?”

“Mollie?”

“Well, yeah. The kids’ll be fine, they’d already started to play with some of the others before I left,” she said quietly, settling into his lap as he rubbed the heel of his hand over her back in long, slow strokes. “But… I did see a blond…”

Gladio drew back to look at her with his eyebrows knitted together. “Prompto?”

“Think so,” she nodded. “Didn’t get close enough to see, but he walked like him.”

“Godsdamn…” he shook his head. “Was he okay?”

Rena shrugged. “Still alive.”

Gladio took a deep breath, one that shifted both of them, and rested his head on her shoulder. “I hope it was him.”

“Me too.”

“How long were you in town?”

“A few hours on either trip. Dropped a few off at Mollie’s after I’d finished up-.”

“Shit, how many were there?” Gladio dreaded the answer immediately. One was already too many.

“Eighteen. A couple of them wouldn’t leave, so there were twelve with me. One died on the road.”

A weight settled in Gladio’s gut. It was heavy and bloody, a head chopped from its neck only to land in a basket. It was justice, no matter how cruel it was.

“Some of them were toddlers,” Rena shook her head, eyes focused loosely as she remembered. Her edge snapped back as fast and bright as a switchblade before she continued. “Anyway, back to Mollie. She uh, she’s going home in a couple weeks and kind of…”

Gladio’s brows drew together as he nudged to get a better look at her. She did her best not to meet his eyes.

“Kinda what?”

“She wants me to go too…”

Sometimes it still made Gladio bitter. Mollie may have been gentle and soft, but she’d still been witness to years even he was kept from. On the few occasions he’d asked, or the conversation had led that way, Rena had insisted that it didn’t matter anymore. That it was over, it was done, and there was nothing she could do about it. Stubborn as she may have been, she was accepting of what could no longer be changed.

Mollie knew, she’d witnessed first-hand, and yet she continued to ask Rena to walk on cut glass and to stand in a house that threatened to crush her. It was air she couldn’t breathe. Gladio wondered if she understood and could’ve cursed her for asking. Rena already had.

“You don’t have to,” he whispered, forehead pressed to hers.

“I know.” Rena nodded and breathed a sigh. “Maybe I should.”

“Listen,” Gladio said, cupping her cheeks as he leant back just that little bit to lock eyes with her.

It was then he saw that she hadn’t changed. Not really. She was the same tired, stubborn mind conditioned to believe her existence had the sole purpose of filling a role and doing whatever needed done. She’d been lost in freedom and carved paths in it to give herself structure.

There was one thing he was determined she would never be again, unless she asked it of him.

“You’re not doing this one alone. I’ll go with you. If you want, we can take those two. If not, we can hole them up somewhere safe for a few hours at a time and one of us can run back to check on ‘em.”

“You don’t-.”

“I don’t want you going there alone. I don’t care how long it’s been and I don’t care what Mollie said. I don’t give a shit about any of that.” He shook his head, brows pinched as warm, earthen eyes made their appeal. The rough pad of his thumb smoothed over the scar on her cheek. “Please don’t go alone.”

Rena appeared completely still, but he knew she’d be chewing the sides of her tongue. She would squeeze it until the flesh turned bitter and sore and forced her to make a decision.

She’d always hated doing that.

“Alright,” she conceded.

Gladio pressed his forehead to hers and matched her again, brow for brow, breath for breath and soul for soul. He pressed a firm kiss to her head. Rena met him when he swept back down and caught his lips with hers.

He melted. The arms wrapped around each other tightened until bodies were fused and he could feel the raw heat of her newest scar against his belly, as though he could leech the pain into his own body and share the load. She caught him slow and soft and careful. In that net, he was nowhere. It was bliss. Simple, painless, bliss that cost them nothing but air. They’d have traded the blue of the sky just to kiss each other.

She hummed, and he answered. Rena could feel the sound push from deep in his chest, warm and rough and soft as good earth. The arms he’d hooked around her waist took their separate paths. A strong hand at her hip and another that trailed fingertips between her shoulder blades made her surge to kiss him harder. The hopes of bruising him enough to make him return with a mark to her neck were unnamed and instinctive. Her own hands formed a fist in his hair and cupped his face for a palmful of jaw and thick beard. He fought back. A dripping temptation lured tongues together and let them dance as his hand slipped to the belt of her jeans.

It was too easy. Before either could fall further into it, they broke apart and frowned through the self-inflicted tease. It was like stretching before a run; it made the muscles hot and ready, only for them to force themselves still. Magnets torn apart. It was an echo of the pain that came when release itself was denied; a pain that made them both curse, but never each other.

Heads pressed as they stayed close, Gladio’s sigh was almost a growl. “We can’t.”

“Oh, but we fuckin’ could,” she spoke, voice quiet and hoarse, like ripped sheets.

Gladio’s brows gathered as he pleaded. “Don’t. Don’t start with the voice.”

“Don’t you start with that voice,” Rena murmured. She met him for a chaste kiss and forced tired legs to keep her up, out of his lap. “You’re right though.”

Gladio’s grumbled whine was the sound of nerves grating against themselves like hands rubbing together to keep warm instead of finding warmer flesh to feel. Something lush and heady. The sin of tectonism was as rich and dripping with sweet temptation as honey from the comb.

“Hey, food’s… Up…”

Round-eyed and fawnish, Talcott stared for a moment, then pressed his lips together and backed out of the room in silence.

The two of them stayed close, though not pressed against each other. With her arms looped about his neck and his own around her waist, the flannel-clad back of one shielding the bared skin of the other. They had to fight back laughs as loud whispers slipped through the almost closed door.

“What happened to you?”

“They were getting all weird again.”

“Oh, c’mon… GLADDY! FOOD. NOW.”

Rena snorted a laugh and hid its echoes in his shoulder as Gladio shook with a withheld laugh.

“Oh… If only they knew…”

“Mmh… I wouldn’t mind getting weird,” she said with a voice like silk. Gladio strangled a groan in his throat again and frowned at her. The snort of laughter that she gave was met by his own.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t, you kinky freak…” he growled sweetly. Rena winked and purred.

“You know it.” Her voice faded as she kissed him again, slow enough for it to feel like that thick shade of red. Rena’s tone took humour when she spoke again. “You started it.”

“It’s getting cold!” Iris called. They could hear the frown.

“Might as well get something hot,” she suggested. Gladio laughed in his throat, but it turned to whines. Deep brown eyes locked on hers as he took a deep breath. “Do me a favour?”

“Depends.”

“Tighten this?” she asked, pulling one of her bra straps taught with her thumb. His brows drew together.

He took the strap and began to work the fabric through the slider. “Alright but… why?”

Rena held up her hands. Unbound, pale, scarred and bleeding around the knuckles, they were shaking enough to blur. He ran his finger underneath the tightened strap to smooth it, feeling as though he were on the right side of the fabric, for once, with warm skin under his fingertip. Eyes lingered on each other.

“C’mon, let’s go get fed,” she sighed. Rena gritted her teeth as she forced already stiffened limbs to move again. She held out a hand and pulled Gladio up when he took it, then pulled the Henley over her skin again.

“Or poisoned…” he muttered under his breath as they left the room. He didn’t hear a laugh, but the soft nudge to his elbow was enough.

* * *

“We should move soon.”

Gladio raised a brow and his gaze from the small spark he was trying to nurse.

“What makes you say that?”

“We’ve been here at least a month and... I know it’s quiet but-.”

“It’s too quiet?”

Rena hummed an unsure note and nodded. Her fingers played the pearl between them as she swayed from side to side. On another glance to the cabin, she could see Iris scrubbing at an old tin.

Quiet as those woods were, peaceful even, they were only that way because they were the centre of a snare. The lodge wasn’t the only building occupied, and the others formed a fence around these trees, one that was thin with daemons but thick with people. Hunters. If she tread carefully, she could go without sight of anyone else for days. The area was large, but not large enough to hide them forever, and daemons were often the least of their worries.

Instead of waiting for the pot to boil around her hand, Rena chose to change the water.

Gladio sat back on the ground with a grunt and breathed a sigh that clouded in front of him, a smoother version of the smoke that trickled from a fire that could’ve fit in his palm. He drew a cold lungful through gritted teeth and looked up at her.

“What did you have in mind?”

She chewed at the sides of her tongue and tried to make a decision. Observations came first. Based on the carcasses of trees and the way streams never gathered to anything bigger than a creek eight-foot-wide before they drained into growing swamps, they were in Duscae. North but central. At least two hundred miles from Lestallum, and with no means of staying there for any length of time. With heavy loads, even if they stashed some of it, it would take them at least a week to get there. That was only if they went unnoticed. Even then, Lestallum wasn’t heaven. More people meant more trouble and that was an indisputable fact. Whether it was disease, deception or direct violence, people were as unpredictable and dangerous as ever.

If she was two hundred from Lestallum, they could be three, maybe four hundred miles from the cabin her parents refused to leave. Her mother refused to leave, and her father refused to leave her. Stubbornness ran in the family, and her own dug its heels further into the ground the more she looked to the west.

Rena glanced up again and made what she could of the spattering of pale stars that shone through bare branches. Shiva’s finger always pointed north and if Bahamut’s seventh sword was in the sky, winter was near. She didn’t need the stars to tell her that. The red flannel she’d wrapped in was enough to keep the worst off, but she could feel the air change. In years gone by, she would’ve been able to smell it. The air turned so cold and crisp the sweetest scent was that of fire. Pine sap was winter’s honey. Bitter, dark and treacherous, it was best treated with respect.

“Not Leide.” She shook her head and kept swaying on her feet, as though the motion was the shuttle in a loom to make her plan appear in front of her in a tapestry of thought. “It’s too unprotected for how cold it gets.”

Gladio hummed an agreement and snapped twigs in his hand to stack his little blaze.

“Caem’s overrun and so’s Saxham, or that’s the word in Lestallum. Looping south’s out of the question.”

“We can’t take the mountains this late in the year,” Gladio provided as he shook his head gravely. “If the weather hasn’t hit them, they’ll be swarming with daemons.”

“Fuckin’ big ones too, nobody ever takes those jobs.”

“So…” he trailed, eyes locked as both of them stayed in their thoughts. “North?”

“North. We swing by Lestallum. Try and get a job. Paid in advance, or at least half. That’ll keep us fed long enough to follow the river and find somewhere to sleep near the pass. After that…” Rena chewed her lip as she tried to iron out the details and snip loose threads.

“We could sell the fuel in town. We’re not gonna use it. Feeds us a little longer,” Gladio suggested as he gestured with an open palm.

“Mmh,” Rena agreed, hand buried in her hair as she nodded. “We’ll sell three, stash one. The codeine can go. Let’s keep the morphine, at least we can stretch it out.”

When her eyes came back down from a routine scan of their close horizons, they caught the tiny bumps on his arms. Even as heat emanated from him, the cool air had been enough to give him goosebumps. Rena shouldered from the flannel, handed it over, and spoke while he put it on.

“We’ll need to find somewhere decent. If it snows, the ridge’ll hold it for weeks. Then we’re fucked.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gladio said gently. “We’ll find somewhere, even if it’s shitty. We get there early enough, we can fix it up a little. It’ll be okay.”

“It needs to be enough,” she stressed, though her tone gave nothing but exhaustion. She’d slept and eaten, but knew she was far from done. They always were.

Gladio stood and took her elbows in his hands to pull her closer, forearms braced against each other.

“We’ll be okay,” he assured in a rough whisper as soft as a feather. He tucked a frayed ghost of a curl behind her ear. “We’ll make sure.”

“We don’t exactly have a fuckin’ choice.”

“I know,” he mumbled, lips pressed to her temple.

“And there I was, thinking I’d have shitloads of time when the world finally fucked itself over.”

Gladio huffed a smile. “Yeah…” His brows gathered into a frown before he glanced at his watch. “Speaking of time, that’s his ten up.”

“Ah, fuck, alright. Here we go,” Rena said as she shouldered her rucksack and whistled Ochre to her side. She buried bound hands in the dog’s fur and played with his ears. “Let’s go find that little shit, shall we?”

Gladio snorted. “Be careful.”

“I don’t know, you’re the one watching Iris. I’d watch your back if I was you.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Gladio rolled his eyes under a raised brow. “Been doing that for the last twenty-two years.”

Rena shook her head with a quiet laugh and began to walk. Each step was one strike of flint against steel to heat her body and keep her warm in cool air. Something in it stifled her. The scents never changed, and when they did they only soured to rotten flesh or became the bitter aftermath of a fire. There was a breeze but it was so uniform it barely seemed to exist at all. Everything used to be a blend of colour, scent and sounds, and the wind would mix the paints into a season.

The only mark of seasons they had was when the water began to freeze and they traded rare rain for snow. Change was no longer the concert that passed the baton, or the fireworks of colour at the turn of the seasons. It happened little by little, in muted hues and quiet cold.

She kept her eyes busy in gentle sweeps of her surroundings as the trees shifted around her. No rain for a few days had made clues subtler. Ochre kept his nose to the ground and slalomed between the trees to catch his scent. It was unfair to use a dog to find him, but it guaranteed that she would.

As he’d grown older, he’d become quick and quiet. With no combat training, no history with weapons and yet a defined atmosphere to his being. Talcott had stealth, though it needed practiced. He was cautious and patient, never one to run in blind. That was perhaps his greatest strength; observance. He had a knack of noticing that had made it hard to hide the cruelled edges of the world from him, just to give him a little longer to be a child; they’d hidden the axe from the sapling in fear it would give up if it knew the possibilities of fate.

Talcott had seen them anyway. He’d peeked through the gaps in the fingers that covered his eyes and though the view was narrowed, he knew what the world was. After a while, they’d stopped trying to tint existence when it was already so dim.

Their eyes had adjusted, for the most part. Rena was sure that if she was offered a view of more than ten metres, it would blur at the edges. Light and vision didn’t go far in the dark. The result was a claustrophobically close horizon that stood to close and refused to move. With trees for markers, she at least had some sense of where she was going and more importantly, where she’d been.

The bark of a tree had a patch missing. They were so dry in death that species with thicker skins would abandon parts on impact. Broken, it would fall to the ground like huge, rough coffee grinds and husks.

The image flashed in her mind, blinding and bright, before it faded again.

Talcott had a habit of touching trees when he passed them. The grounding of sensation with motion helped him remember where he’d been so that he could trace his way back. If he was at a run, the force of these usually simple pats would be enough to break bark.

Rena approached the bruised tree and let her eyes sweep. The woods thickened on her left and opened up on the right. He knew enough, but not everything. Talcott would choose the broader path because it granted him speed, as opposed to the cramped thicket that offered discretion. Until he learned to pass through rougher ground fast enough, he would always pick the open woods. Though, he knew better than to choose open ground. Those were spaces with nowhere to hide and few clues as to their limitations. They were beyond risky; they were dangerous.

Ochre agreed with her choice to follow the path Talcott’s mind would take and perked up a few feet into those wider spaces. Pale trees were the pillars and eaves of a long-abandoned cathedral. There was no choir now, no colour streaming through leaves like stained glass, no organ of thrumming insects and heat in the summer. There was no splendour. No worship of life. No prayers to keep it.

Prayers were seldom heard, and yet the pious had more to cling to in both life and death than those who gave them little more than their names.

Her breath plumed in front of her, each cloud disappearing before the next took its place and marked her as both living and strong. With Ochre set on the scent, he began to pick up his pace. He went from a busy stride, to a trot, and finally a long lope when Rena broke into a jog. The fresh cut stung and threatened to rip. She had sewn it tightly, so it would hold even if it did.

Something about a run through those woods felt both exhilarating and torturous. To feel the air move brought some of the old sensation back; an echo of what had been left behind. But to carve through it and find it to be the same air, never changing its scent, was maddening. It should have changed. It should have been as complex and shifting as dappled light through the canopy. Yet things were exactly as they were meant to be.

The run let heat pour from her bones to warm every last fibre of her until it ebbed some from the wound and numbed it as it flexed. Ochre kept his head low and ears down as he homed in on the scent. It was the strongest thing in the world to him, something that promised soft hands and a smile when he reached the end. A welcoming presence meant more to that dog than any full stomach, any spot by the fire and any amount of freedom, ever could.

Rena breathed quietly when she ran. Usually silent, the higher demand made her lungs work for their fill. Though not soundless, it was quiet enough that she could hear it. Fast. Determined, but not frantic. Pursuant. She kept her stride and pulled the knife from her thigh.

It barely brushed her elbow before she’d pinned it to a tree. She’d expected wide eyes, but not that shade.

Rena took her knife from Iris’ fine neck and stared at her.

“What… The fuck… Are you doing out here?”

“I, uh…” Iris gulped and tried to catch her breath. Rena still had her pressed to a tree with a forearm across her chest, and still stood an inch taller than her. That inch, especially in such a position, would’ve been enough to make Iris wilt in years gone by. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Rena let her go and stepped back. She sighed at the ground before whistling Ochre back. While she waited, she lifted her gaze to pin Iris once again.

“Just-.”

“I couldn’t ask when we were back at the cabin… I needed to talk to you.”

She frowned at her and stood, swaying from side to side with her hands on her hips. Rena gestured with one and then used it to play with Ochre’s ears when he barrelled back to her side.

“Why?”

“I uh, I wanted to ask you something but I kinda wanna…”

“Iris, what’re you hiding?” She spoke simply. It was the first knock on a door before she’d choose to get the lockpicks out.

Mouth open in a small round shape and eyes wide to the side, it only took a moment of Iris’ gaping expression before Rena lost patience. She had work to do.

“Can you walk and talk?”

Iris closed her mouth with a pop and nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Alright, come on then,” she said, before she turned and sent the dog away to find and follow the scent again with a flick of her hand.

Silence was carried between them like an empty coffin. Still heavy, though neither knew why. Rena waited and kept her eyes and ears busy. It was harder to hear when there was someone walking beside her, and harder to focus on the dark when there was constantly someone in her peripheral.

Iris kept quiet. Rena almost thought she’d spooked her with a sudden response and a knife to her throat. A part of her thought that it served her right. She wasn’t supposed to be there. She was supposed to be back at the cabin, safe, under Gladio’s watch. Iris was far from dim and should have known better than to pursue Rena when she was running alone.

The simple, pure fear of seeing eyes close to that hue, lined by the same thick lashes, had been enough to frighten Rena to stop.

“Come on. Spit it out,” she coaxed. Already slowed in her search, she wanted the most made of the longer period of time she’d now have to spend finding Talcott.

“I uh…”

Iris chewed her bottom lip and screwed her eyes shut before she blurted her confession.

“I want you to train me.”

Rena kept walking but she glanced at the face of impending regret to her side. She faced forwards again and shook her head lightly. Her tone was calm, gentle even, but it still hit Iris with the full, bitter weight of rejection.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But… I know he’s trying to teach me and he’s doing okay and it was working! It was! I just… I just don’t feel like he’s testing me anymore. It feels like he’s just going through the motions and I still don’t feel…”

“Ready,” Rena provided.

Iris gave a sigh too heavy for a frame that was still lithe. “Yeah… Ready…”

“I-.”

“Please!”

“Shh,” she hushed. One look from dark green eyes was enough to make Iris drop her gaze and keep her quiet, silently chastising herself for anything more than a hushed voice in the dark woods. “Let me finish, yeah?”

Iris nodded and spoke in a meek tone that defied her growing ballsiness. “Okay.”

“I was gonna say that it takes time. You’re gonna need to fuck up a few times before you feel ready. Even then…” Rena trailed off and shook her head. “You already had a start in training. Cor taught you a little, right? Before everything went to shit? Gladio’s your best bet. He follows the same methods, and they’re what you know. Stick to it.”

Iris gave another sigh, softer and quiet. Defeated. Rena’s attention snagged on her despondency; it was a body language and she knew well, though better on a different frame.

“He’s your brother, Iris. He won’t hurt you, even if it’s for your own good. That’s just the way they are.”

Iris blinked and considered it in silence for a moment. Afterwards, her eyes came back with a confident spark that wasn’t entirely sincere and a straighter posture to keep her tall.

“Pshh, like he’d hurt you.”

Rena turned to her and raised an eyebrow. Iris’ face fell.

“He knows how much I can take, and I know how much he can take. We can beat the shit out of each other because we know when to stop. He doesn’t want to find out how much you can take, and he sure as fuck won’t beat the shit out of you.”

“Would you?” she asked carefully, as though she already knew the answer and already knew to both respect and fear it.

She gave a sigh that almost growled in her throat and shook her head.

“I don’t want to.”

“But would you?” Iris asked again. Her brows had gathered together as she stared at Rena for an answer. “Only way to find out what I can deal with is to reach my limits.”

Rena gently snorted a laugh.

“What?”

“You sound like him.”

“But I can’t fight like him,” she mumbled.

Rena ducked under a low branch and followed the sweeping arch of Ochre’s pale, flaxen tail. Iris came after and fell quiet again. The roots were knotted under their feet. It would have slowed Talcott, if not changed his mind and therefore direction. Ochre led straight on. As they worked through the closer thicket, Rena let her voice push out into the quiet, smooth and low as heavy fog.

“You can’t fight like me either, you know.”

Iris cursed herself for a shaky inhale and immediately forced her nerves to steel and her resolve to hold.

It happened sometimes when she looked at Rena. It was a sensation she’d never held towards someone so bruised and beaten by their life. That was most of the reason she’d kept looking. Iris wanted to learn. She’d tried to mimic her tenacity, her stubbornness, her steady nature and quick thinking. Iris wanted to know how to make decisions and how to bear their weight when they failed and fell on top of her. She was trying to learn one thing by watching everything Rena did.

How to be unbreakable.

There were times Iris felt as fragile as the porcelain she’d been taught to regard herself as. That was the way in the city, and especially in the Citadel. All her life, she’d been told she was porcelain, something to be preserved, appreciated for its grace and beauty, and to be guarded for its weakness.

Iris hated porcelain and knew she wasn’t steel, no matter how much she wanted to be.

Instead, she would be lead paint. She would be the poison of beauty. The fine, smooth cheek with a dangerous secret and the colours that drew them in with innocent charm only to reveal her toxicity. Venom.

It was a dangerous game to play in those days, but Talcott had told her about the bar. About Rena and what she’d let a man do. He hadn’t understood, but Iris had made sense of half details and shaky observations. If Rena, who was all blood and iron, expression as still as a woodcarving and eyes as indeterminable as mist, could use that same venom, then Iris would be more than capable.

Theoretically.

She knew neither of them would let her try.

“Sorry for asking. Didn’t mean to put that on you all of a sudden.”

Rena drew a deep breath.

“If you really, really, need to, then we’ll try it. A week. We’ll keep it quiet and if you get better, then we’ll talk to him about it. Alright?”

Iris gasped and darted in front of Rena, fists gathered under her chin and eyes wide.

“You really mean it?”

“Yeah, fuck it,” she sighed, stepping past as she followed the dog.

“Holy shit!”

“Shh.”

“Oh, yeah. Right,” Iris corrected herself, tone clipped as it spilled through a smile. Rena glanced to her side and shook her head when she saw Iris bite back a grin. “So, uh, when do we start?”

“Right now.” Rena shrugged and slipped through a narrow gap between the wall of trees that lined the end of the thicket. “You been paying attention?”

“Kinda? I mean, I-.”

Iris fell silent. The flat of a blade was cold against her throat and a bound hand had covered her mouth. Rena had caught her. Wild, dark hair appeared in her peripheral as she leant forwards and raised a brow at her.

Iris muffled her words into Rena’s palm. She lifted her hand away.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I guess not?”

“Nah, you were paying a little attention.”

Rena let her go and began to walk again, as Iris rubbed gently at her throat. Even the flat of that blade felt sharp. Iris saw it so often, it seemed harmless. Functional. Quiet. Efficient. It was made of the elements of this world, and she was sure that its owner was made of the same.

“How come?” Iris jogged to catch up with Rena.

“You stopped.”

Rena stood still and Iris a few feet from her. A half smile crept onto the elder’s features.

“There, see? You did it again.”

“So… Rule number one… Always pay attention?” Iris checked tentatively.

“These aren’t rules. Rules can be disobeyed and you’ll be fine as long as you aren’t caught, but eventually it’ll fuck you over. Rules can be forgotten. These are lessons, Iris. You can’t unlearn something and if you can, it just means you didn’t learn it in the first place.”

Iris nodded and blinked. It almost made Rena laugh; she was so much like him. The same mannerisms, gestures, expressions, through and through. Sometimes it was hard to believe they weren’t twins, especially as they’d grown and Iris had stopped looking like a child. She still had the glow of youth to her, something others her age had long since had ripped away from them.

“So… Lesson number one; always pay attention.”

“Nope.”

Iris’ shoulders fell with a huffed breath. She watched Rena with wide eyes as she stood in silence.

“First lesson was stay quiet.”

“Ah.”

“Mhm. Don’t forget that one; you’ll need it.”

“So, lesson two was always pay attention?”

Rena turned to face her as they walked and wore an almost amused frown. “You don’t have to number then, you know. Just learn them. Get them wrong, I don’t care, as long as you learn.”

“Right…”

Iris felt as though she were painting over carvings. Years of the same methods of training had made her dangerous, if she chose. She’d even helped on a few hunts and had some scars to prove it, but every time she did, she felt like deadweight. One of them was always close to her. Watching. Guarding. After ever fight, Iris was as tired mentally as she was physically. Her mind became overrun with training sequences and none were yet as instinctive as she wanted them to be.

Gladio trained her in numbers. Four steps, each with strike positions. Six dodges. Eight parries. He trained her in dance steps and formulas, oddly theoretical but he understood them. Gladio had always understood things that were stamped into existence. He could take a page and be consumed by the letters that, through some chance of fate, had become words, sentences, paragraphs, people, stories, worlds. He could take black and white and convert it to every sensation.

She glanced to her side. Rena was quiet and calm. Focused. Her serenity was far from comfortable; she was always listening, always watching and only content if she knew every detail of her environment. Any shift in that equilibrium, and her features would harden around the edge in those eyes. Iris had never envied her looks, but there was something brutally beautiful when the clean, sharp edge of focus tensed in her expression, as though she were sprung to attack. It was as easy as breathing for Rena. Instinctive, subconscious and essential. Rena lived in her senses and used all of them to build her perception. She’d needed to.

Out of the four of them, she seemed to suit the new age best. She had the traits of the old. Rena had grown up thirty years behind them and all it had made her was ready. The world had been flipped on its head, and she still walked on. The plants had wilted and the animals had died, and she still fed them. A hunter to her core had been left with no choice but to find new quarry when her old vanished. Rena looked as though she’d always lived in this reality. Messy, stained, scarred and tireless. She carried weapons as easily as she wore clothes. The hunting knife was at her thigh, the axe strapped to the side of her rucksack, and those were only the weapons Iris could see. She was prepared purely because she never trusted enough to expect anything.

Iris thought the world of her brother, but they didn’t live in that world anymore.

“Here’ll do,” Rena said.

Broken silence fell from Iris like shed petals as she looked around. The clearing was small and sunken. Its edges were defined by walls of dirt held loosely by bony roots. They didn’t draw anything from the earth anymore, so had no need to hold so tightly. It was a token gesture. Nothing would be gained. A mesh of thin branches gathered above.

It reminded Iris of the pergola in the garden. Roses always grew over it, even without tending. She couldn’t have said how many tea parties and royal dinners she’d held there in her childhood, usually with the fine company of her first few moogles and always with her brother on her arm. Jared taught her to bake so that she could have cakes with her tea and Talcott… When he’d first been brought to the house as a tiny, clumsy toddler, Iris had dragged him to the table and insisted he play prince. Talcott had just tilted his head at her. Gladio had feigned offense; his precious role had been swept out from under his feet. He’d dropped the illusion when Talcott nearly fell a chair that was too high for him, and instead offered his services as support for the clumsy toddler prince.

The roses would be dead by now. She would consider it a miracle if the pergola was still standing. If the house was still there. Reports brought back from the city in the early days had all said the same thing. It was gone. Ruined. The outer suburbs had been abandoned, and everything within two miles of the Citadel was ash and rubble. Sometimes she could tell when a breeze came from the east; it still smelled like home.

Like fire.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Rena brought her crashing back to the present, to the dark and the quiet. She stood ready, swaying on her feet as she kept her hands gathered in front of her. She stretched both. One curled into a fist, while the other whisked the knife from its holster.

“What- but I don’t have-.”

“Think again.”

Iris came back to the core of it and considered her performance. She wouldn’t have pinned Rena as one to be a stickler for manners. Her brother still held to some of the old, chivalric practices. Brows gathered, she tried again in a polite tone.

“Could you please summon my lance for me?”

Rena spoke with equal softness. “No.”

“What?!”

“There’s no point teaching you to fight with something you don’t have or can’t get.” She fixed her gaze on Iris and kept in fighting stance. Knitted brows and an earnest expression that was dark in sincerity made her point clear. “If you have nothing, use nothing.”

Iris’ eyes flicked to the blade in her hand. No chance, she thought. Cold air filled her lungs in a deep breath before she readied her fists.

“You ready?”

“Yup,” she said with gumption.

Rena nodded and kept shifting in stance. “Strike first.”

She knew not to wait to decide; that every instant mattered and could give her away, especially to an opponent who knew what they were doing. Something heavy and thick settled on Iris. It draped over her like a blanket and made it hard to move, as though it would exaggerate every motion and give her away, before it sank hooks into her gut and pulled her towards the ground. It made it feel pointless already.

Iris had no idea where to start. Rena was well guarded, armed and experienced.

The head was always vulnerable.

She’d barely thrown the punch when it was blocked by a forearm. Rena held the force of it before pushing her back.

“Again.”

Her head swam with the dozens of hand to hand techniques Gladio had taught her. One flashed in her mind. Quick and simple. Effective.

Iris threw another punch with her right and kicked with her left leg. There was a blur of dark hair, a forceful grip on her knee, one tug, and then the hard ground slammed into her chest.

Winded, she coughed to give her lungs life again and rolled onto her side.

“Again.”

Brows drawn, she pushed against the dirt. She could see the dark boots in her peripheral. Rena was close. She wouldn’t expect it.

Iris swiped for her legs. If she could bring her down, she had a chance at whatever was needed to win, or at least prove she was worth the effort, the time. Worth that investment. When her hands closed around Rena’s calf, she broke into a grin.

Without moving her feet, Rena ducked, hauled Iris by the arm and pulled her to stand. With her legs already unbalanced, she fought to stand. Rena held her steady and twisted her arm behind her back.

“Ah! Fuck!”

Rena kept her hold. It wasn’t the continued pain that silenced Iris. Nor was it any change. It was realisation. It was cold and hard and pressed to her neck. She froze when she felt it.

“Lesson three, if you’re really that bothered about numbering them, don’t-.”

“Don’t try to kick while you’re down?”

“Alright, lesson three’s changed to don’t interrupt,” Rena said with amusement. She kept her hold though, to make her think twice. With her hand almost against her nape, shoulder threatening to pop, and a knife against her throat, Iris kept still. “Lesson four is don’t trust anyone or anything.”

“What?”

“Not even yourself. Challenge everything. Is it really that easy? Would it really be worth it?” Rena gave her examples, before she leant down to speak by Iris’ ear. She knew it would be bait that Iris couldn’t resist. “Can you really do this?”

Iris fought from her grip with a growl and darted a few feet away. Dark eyes locked as a fierce expression met calm, almost dignified, experience. Iris searched the ground about her. She swiped a thick branch and made her strike fast.

It was stopped by blunt force and Rena hadn’t moved. Iris felt the shine of success swim like gold under her fingertips.

Then she saw the knife. An inch of steel had been swallowed by the makeshift club as Rena held it back with lazy efficiency. Iris’ face fell into a defeated frown and gritted teeth.

Witness to her new pupil’s growing desperation and unwilling to break her unless she needed it, Rena looked at the point at which weapons had met, then fixed her gaze on a frustrated girl who was trying her best.

“Good thinking,” she admitted easily. “But… You want a tip?”

“Please,” Iris groaned, eyes to the sky before they locked on Rena again.

“Always have something pointy.” She nodded, wiggling the knife and the branch a little. The sound of steel grating against long dried wood was quietly threatening. “And fuckin’ sharp. Comes in handy.”

“No kidding,” Iris sighed.

A thought crossed her mind. Cautious eyes lifted from the ground with a quiet hope in them. It was the same type that came when she came inside and could smell food. Sometimes her stomach convinced her mind that she could smell all her old favourites, from deeply savoury baked artichokes and chickatrice through to the sweet, sharp and soft combination of milk puddings and berry coulis. It was hope without expectation.

“You… got a spare? Just… If you wouldn’t mind letting me borrow it…?”

Rena put her hand against the branch and pulled her knife from it. For a moment, Iris almost regretted it. Asking for something that personal and integral to herself was beyond impolite. She may as well have asked Rena to cut off her hand and give it to her. Iris realised the weight of it too late.

She tucked the knife back into the belt and started to walk again. Iris puffed her cheeks with a relieved sigh before she shook her head and followed. Too close. As they walked, Rena kept her eyes on the trees.

Iris tried to make scans, like they’d taught her, but she couldn’t yet face the woman on her left. She was cursing herself. She had requested too much, too early, and without showing enough potential to earn it. There was a balance she needed to strike, but Iris was still heavy handed at the scale. The world had infinite lessons to teach, and while she’d learned some of them, others seem further out of her reach than ever.

She’d never felt so controlled. So confined and trapped in her mind and what it knew to do with her body. Iris had a book of organised techniques, copied out and learned by rote. Rena had given her a blank canvas to paint. A piano and no sheets. Things she’d seen and heard at completion thousands of times, but Iris had never had to carve her way into their craft before.

It had been a long time since she’d been a beginner and feeling helpless was more than unwelcome when life kept its stakes so high.

“Here.”

Rena swung her rucksack back onto her back and glanced at Iris. She stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the offering.

The little spear point was black all over. The onyx blade had a small dent in one of the edges, and was as dull as its matte shade.

“I’d give you something bigger, but this is the best I’ve got right now,” she said, as she offered it handle first.

As soon as Iris’ tentative fingers came within an inch of the knife, Rena flipped it and held the point at her. She whipped her hand back as though she’d been cut and broke her fixation on the knife to look at Rena.

The woman stepped in front and faced her with a stare that Iris didn’t dare break from. It was far from angry, though it did hold threat. Calm, but concerned enough to feel as though it needed said.

“This,” she said, holding up the knife. “Is life. You can do whatever the fuck you want with it, but don’t ever forget that this can save you and it can kill you. It can feed you just as much as it makes you bleed. If you take care of it, it’ll last as long as you do, maybe even longer. If you don’t, it won’t work with you and you’ll learn to hate it.”

Iris blinked and nodded as she turned the words over in her head. “So… Learn to love it?”

“Learn to understand it. Respect it. This is as much of a toy as you are.” Rena’s words had enough weight for Iris to bear them immediately. She’d grown up in acceptance of her life as the spare, as little more than a token gesture. She’d learned to hate it and strove to prove she was more. “Learn to learn, not to be taught.”

Rena handed her the knife and squeezed her hand around Iris’ once she’d taken a grip. Then she pointed at it and her.

“Not an invitation to stab me before tomorrow’s training.”

Iris broke into a quiet laugh and smiled. Rena returned it. Brown eyes were bright and shining with just that little bit of pride. A tiny scrap of conviction. She wanted to prove that she was worth it, and Rena was giving her that chance.

Iris was too much like her brother to shy from a challenge.

Something pale rushed from the trees. Iris gasped, flew aside and clutched the new weapon that felt too small to carry so much weight in its meaning. Steel sang against steel. There was a growl, a thud and a wheeze.

Talcott, spread eagle on the ground, didn’t stop to breathe. He sprang back to his feet and flashed his knife at Rena again. She caught it with her own, inches from her chest.

Slick and heavy as mercury, adrenaline flowed down to her stomach from tributaries in every vein. She had a fistful of his shirt and kept the knives steady. He was getting better every time.

“Stop showing off,” she said, with mild discipline filtered through a smile.

Hazel eyes creased with a breathless grin over flushed cheeks. His shaggy ashen hair was in complete disarray, though not as messy as the soft, virgin stubble coating his jaw and weakly clinging to his upper lip. He braced gloved hands against his jean-clad thighs and tried to settle his lungs with deep breaths.

“I looped all the way around! How d’you find me so fast?” He frowned, already searching for the flaw in his technique.

“You might’ve crossed your old track. He’d just switch over,” Rena shrugged as she tucked the knife back into the belt.

“Ah…” Talcott sighed raggedly and shook his head. He let out his exclamations when Ochre bounced over to lick at his face while it was in reach. “Plegh! C’mon, buddy, stop it. You did good, though! You found me so fast! It’s easy for an old pro, right?” he asked, hands ruffling the dog’s coat as he danced on his feet and his tail became a blur.

Rena shook her head and turned to Iris.

She’d fixed on Talcott. Eight year her junior, the same difference between herself and her brother, and yet he knew so much. In seven years, she’d taught him to survive. Day by day and lesson by lesson. Under her watch, he’d learned to channel everything that used to stop him in his tracks. Fear was traded for caution; an inability to focus for wide observation; nerves for alertness. Talcott was already more prepared to deal with the world. Children always adjusted faster. They were malleable. Still wild and still growing. Still free to change.

“You alright?”

“Hmm? Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,” she said.

If Rena had trained a seven-year-old with nothing more behind him than pain and loss, then a young woman of twenty-two with enough sense to have kept her alive this long would be something different, but not a challenge.

It would be possible.

Talcott smiled at Iris, his cheeks still pink, then frowned.

“Hey, weren’t you supposed-?”

He went silent the second his gaze caught on Rena.

Her edge was sharp and shining as she watched the trees for any movement. Her head moved in tiny turns as she homed in on the sound. Talcott immediately began doing the same. He searched without moving a muscle, ears telling him what his eyes could not.

Iris frowned and hesitated to speak.

“What?”

“Shh.”

It drew closer. Instinct made them gather behind her. Ochre’s raised hackles and low growl as stared into the trees gave it away. Rena followed with her eyes. Hairs stood on the back of her neck, swept up by an unwanted approach. The heavy footsteps grew louder, and blond hair showed from the dark.


	27. Oblivion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlikely reintroductions are abundant as those remaining face the harsh grip of winter in a world with as much sunlight as mercy.

Gladio burst into a stand as thick brows gathered over a new fire in amber eyes.

“Where the hell were-?!”

“Guess who we found.”

All led by the breaths that plumed in the cold air in front of them, so chilled it felt like water about to freeze, five made their way back to the small, dishevelled cabin. Rena’s words made him dread their answer. He ground his teeth as they came into view.

His face fell slack at the revelation.

“Heh… Hey, big guy…” Prompto said shyly.

Earthen eyes twitched to take him in, to learn every change and new detail; to recognise him again. Ever unruly blond hair had darkened over the years to straw tone as the shaggier strands were tucked back in a small, wispy ponytail. The dash of pale stubble against paler skin gathered around chapped lips in that were almost blue. Frantic fingers knotted themselves to stay still and in one, swift motion that put his hand on the back of his neck, shoulders high and self small, Gladio was seven years younger.

In a blink, he went through all those years again, and wondered how different Prompto’s had been. What the darkness had tested him with, and how he’d survived them all. Gladio was full of questions. None needed answered.

Breathless, he lunged forwards and tugged the blond into a tight hug. His incredulous chuckle came with a shaken head as Prompto held and stayed close.

“She been takin’ care of ya?”

“Shit…” Gladio shook his head, still lost to it. Liveliness returned to his features. “Yeah… Yeah, she’s been-.”

“Running the show, or so I hear.”

Bold features went round and wide as he took in the sight, and Cor was indeed a sight. Pale but still weathered, with a darkness around his eyes and thinner than Gladio had seen him in decades. He’d always been slim. Never starved. Eyes as clear and bright as steel, and bluer than anything they’d known for years, Cor watched the eldest Amicitia with equal parts expectation and respect.

Hidden from the world through his own choice, and lucky that he wasn’t alone, Gladio had become a wilder version than Cor had seen since he was a child. He’d traded scraped knees for worn fingers; eyes bright with wonder for those that shone in trepidation; running with abandon towards the rest of his life, eager before he understood and felt the weight of those chains, for running away and keeping his head down. Gladio had long been taught to think he was the table, not the lamb that lay to be cut and bled over it, all in the name of that lie they called duty.

Something in Cor’s gaze stripped him bare. Where it has once been a glimmer, it now filled his eyes and every line of his face, every hair that had paled the short, dark tufts and kept thick over his jaw. It had been half a century in the making. With every beating he took for his stubbornness, for his anger and his impulse, it had hammered shape to that last weapon that needed forged to complete Cor’s arsenal.

Wisdom suited him, and when it was so quietly bold in blue eyes, Gladio was reminded of another pair he’d known. A calm thunder brought him back to the present and made him mindful of the eyes that still held him in high regard.

“You know, I never thought that all those years ago… You two’d do the worst job of killing each other I’d ever see.”

Gladio stared at him for a moment, then shook his head with a rich laugh.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you too,” he said, voice soft in its roughness.

The two pulled together for a solid hug, heavy hands firm on backs made hard by the years. Underneath the clinging scent of sweat and dirt that clung to everyone, he could still smell the old Crownsguard leather, the polish they used in the training halls and the bitter tonic water Cor drank religiously to stave off the cramps and strain too many years of service, from too young of an age, had gifted him.

“How’ve you been?”

Gladio raised his brows and cocked his head. “We’ve…”

The rough voice dipped just as a smoother tone with just as much warmth swept up from behind him. Always in tandem. Precisely why Cor had chosen to pit them against each other; they shared some strengths, but not weaknesses. Each had learned to guard the soft spots of the other.

Rena passed him with a shared glance. Subconscious and soft, they brushed against each other, as though to confirm the sharing of presence once again. What made Cor soften an already calm expression was the moment they spent with their pinkies hooked around each other before they let go once again.

“We’ve been worse.”

“What about you? Where’ve you been?”

Cor’s smile was almost weak with embarrassment. He shook his head and gave his answer.

“Hell and back.”

Prompto hummed an agreement. For a moment, he looked as though he was completely alone. The only one for hundreds of miles. As though the wind had whispered something, and he was in accord. Cosmic eyes lost their stars for a moment and became as blank and blue as a cold morning sky. In a moment not overtaken by delirium, but still lined with the quiet joy of reunion in hard times, Prompto looked far too sober.

He snapped out of it the second a steaming tin mug was held out to him.

“It’s… Kinda crap, but it’s hot?” Iris offered the bitter coffee that tasted as though they’d scraped the dust from a shelf and brewed it with pond water.

She was right, though. It was hot. Frozen fingers stung as though the fine bones had turned into knives and bitten into him. The heat that passed, even through his gloves, felt enough to melt flesh from bone. The first whiff made him think twice. The first sip burnt his tongue, and then he was grateful that he couldn’t taste it anymore. Still, there was a wonder in something hot after too long in the cold. It bled from his stomach in the best way to make him feel as though he had blood again. Enough to keep him warm and fluid instead of a frozen arrangement of bones and muscles hard as they cramped.

“Thanks,” he remembered.

A fresh cloud of breath was hot in cold air. It cleared away and amber eyes waited beyond. They still had the quiet, dignified power that was enough to make him feel small, no matter how ragged the man around them was.

Gladio shook his head when he was caught staring. Thick brows drew together as he brought a mug to his lips, then took it away again. While it was level with his waist, Rena slipped her fingers between his and took a sip of the black water. She clenched her jaw at the taste, then passed it back.

“Just… What the hell are you guys doing out here?” He asked, focus in a constant switch between the two of them.

Cor and Prompto were silent again. Their heads began to turn to face one another, eyes still fixed on Gladio, when someone else broke the quiet with all the gentle calm of a drop on a pond. They were waves that travelled far.

“Is… Is it about Ignis? Did you guys hear something? Is he…?”

All shades of eyes turned to Talcott. He gulped and fixed his own on the ground. On a brief flick to Rena, looking for something, anything, to help guide him, he knew the sincere frown wasn’t one of anger. It told him to take responsibility and face the contents of the box he had opened.

When he looked up, steel blue eyes were waiting for him.

“It’s… It’s not about that.” He shook his head, as though he wished it were. “But we did hear something.”

Gladio’s eyes widened as the green at his side kept her scepticism and logic. She would never think Cor or Prompto to be liars, but she had no reason to trust the tongues that fed their ears. People had a habit of saying what someone wanted to hear. She knew that. She’d done it. Never when it mattered, to those that mattered, but if there was something to be gained from a little more silver in her tongue, then silvered it would be.

“What?” Gladio asked thickly.

“I didn’t hear it but Prompto did,” he said, turning at the last syllable to the blond at his side.

He’d gotten lost whilst standing still again. Eyes on him where the knock on a door of an underwater room. It took longer for it to reach his ears, and even one of them still burned with hot, thick water. When he noticed the soft blue at his side and the helplessness that hid in earthen tones, it was as though the door was wrenched open, all the water drained out, and he had to learn to breathe again. It burned every time.

“Yeah, I uh… I was out and overheard a couple guys talking about some folks heading west. They said something about a blind guy. Travelling alone.” He nodded as each detail made them long to run after him. “They said he kept asking for if there was gonna be boat before the port froze up for winter. He waited for about a week, then vanished. Don’t know-.”

“Where’d the boat go?”

“Gladio-,” Rena began gently as she brushed her fingers against his forearm. Eyes still open to the possibility it hadn’t been Ignis, she’d seen something else in cosmic blue eyes.

He would his fingers through hers to anchor him and stepped forward to test the line. “Where’d it go?”

“There… There wasn’t one. Last one this year had already gone, and nobody saw him walk away. He just-.”

“People don’t just disappear,” Gladio said quickly, head shaking.

“He did.”

Mouth open before he closed it and clenched his jaw, Gladio had been silenced by Cor’s interruption. They were unequivocal and bulletproof. He stepped back to level with Rena and glanced at her when she squeezed his hand. Dark green, no matter how much the long night made her pupils hide it, was waiting for him with shared disappointment. Their first light in months had been an ash that burned itself out in the dark.

They all stood in silence for a moment. It was suffocative and gripping. There was no right way to break it without someone being cut on the glass. It needed time to flow and fade, lest tempers be flared and meaningless words given with venom when welcomes and reassurances were due.

Cor cleared his throat softly and earned all of their attentions.

“Staying here?” He gestured to the cabin as it hid, decrepit and crippled, behind the couple.

There were times that no answer was needed. Times when it seemed to fall from the sky and be felt and seen, understood even though it was silent.

The first few flakes of snow began to sprinkle through the trees as the Glacian laid her ashes and dust, ready to bury them for the bitter months ahead. In all their lives, only one had wintered in Cleigne and that had been when the sun would rise and let some life thaw enough to force through the snow. At first, as most things do, it captivated them with rare magic, older than any armiger or study. It had outlived art, music, history itself. This made snow a timeless thing, one that could be trusted to take the stage when its dusting foreshadowed the fun and brilliance of the flurry, or the cold anger in a blizzard.

For now, it was soft and slight. Still enough to silence all of them and give the answer that was shared between brown and green eyes when they met.

Not for long.

* * *

Drifts had already cloaked the lowlands. With a cruel wind dragging its nails across any bare skin, eyes watered and tears froze on ruddy, raw cheeks, they trudged on through the darkness. Trees leant. Creaked. Cracked like gunshots as the gales howled their threats like baying dogs. Still, trees were all they had to mark progress.

Until the trees ran out.

They gave way to nothing but a pale luminosity in the pitch of it all. No longer guarded by branches, the wind brought frozen snow that pelted against them, coarse enough to leave scratches. The air was so thick with it that it was impossible to tell where the ground ended and the sky began, or to see more than twenty feet.

Alone and lost in the blizzard, her muscles fought themselves and the world. Cramps threatened in the heavy blood of exhaustion, as though they’d have to work harder to push it through. The cold made it thick and reluctant. What had begun as a reasonable load in her rucksack had grown to help those unable to carry theirs, and through the ghostly hands that rose from the ground to haul her down.

Rena stayed standing, and stayed still as she tried to see anything that would offer clue. In one instant, so brief she almost thought it a hallucination of wishful thinking, a ridge showed itself. Snow was cast from the blanched peaks like a net over the valley beyond. Rena heard her heartbeat when she recognised the bones of the mountains. She swallowed through a dry mouth and clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering as she turned to find the rest in the dizzying storm.

A whiteout blizzard in the dark is a hell of confusion. It can stretch distances from feet to miles and define that space purely through the white of close snow, then grey, then the limitless black of the distance.

They drew closer, one by one. Dark shapes. Wrapped, though not nearly enough, they kept their hands tucked close, and eyes squinted in the biting wind. Each stopped as they found her still, until heavy drags through the snow came closer.

Too hoarse to shout, Gladio leant down to speak in her ear.

“What’s wrong?”

Rena shook her head as he frowned, blinded by the ice in the air, and looked back to the flat, hard landscape that lay between them and mountain passes.

“It’s the river.”

Her voice had been stolen by a gale, but he read her lips. Gladio’s face fell before he turned towards the Wennath where she lay frozen in her tracks; a desperate force trapped for the first time in living memory.

“We can find a bridge.”

“We’ve tried,” Rena shook her head and gritted her teeth at the ice ahead. A glance to the rest revealed too much.

Cor was dark around the eyes and fighting to breathe as he stood close to Prompto, as though the shaking blond could somehow be the young, fresh tree that would hold up the hardwood if it fell. Just beyond, the raw skin of Iris’ face was surrounded by a thick scarf. Exhausted brown eyes blinked slowly as she caught her breath. Talcott shook hard enough for them to see. The fingertips his gloves didn’t guard became buried in Ochre’s soaked, snow-caked coat as he trudged through in their tracks.

Gladio muttered a curse and wore a sorry frown when he leant to her again.

“Can we do it?”

“If the ice is thick enough, but we don’t know until we’re on it.”

“Rena, if this goes-.”

“I know.” She nodded, the words bitter in her mouth. “I know, but they can’t go much longer. Not out here.”

“Shit…”

“There’s mountains on the other side, they could be fuckin’ swarming but…”

“We have to.”

Cheek to cheek and still cold, Rena screwed her eyes shut and forced a deep breath of the snatching air into her lungs.

“Let’s do it.”

They locked eyes for a moment before Gladio gave her the nod, no matter how reluctant it was. He stood still and let the others pass and follow Rena, before he brought up the rear and kept his end of the line in order.

She knew the edge of the bank when instinct slowed her down. It was a heavy hand on her shoulder. Rena pushed her foot through the snow and tried to find the edge. The ground was frozen solid beneath, and only support the rear half of her foot. Teeth gritted, she made the step.

The snow came to her mid-thigh and only became thicker as time went on and they fought through a storm. She’d led for hours. The drifts had only grown until they were ghosts of the mountains, harder and with no shelter to offer. They were mockeries. Solid mirages. Chilled to the bone, nothing but stubbornness made her move her legs and force herself closer to somewhere they could stop. Warm. Breathe. Sleep, even. As for eating, she did her best not to think about it. It had been days since they had extended ration privileges to themselves. The pair of them were empty and carrying on through nothing but gritted will.

She carved the way and dragged her legs through thick, hard snow. A glance was a mistake that made her throat tighten and tired legs become unsure. Beneath the dull white of snow at night, she’d revealed the black marble of the ice.

She fought the wind to hear and had to screw her eyes shut when it threw tiny shards of ice, like crushed glass, from the frozen drifts on the river. It was the rhythm she’d kept up for hours. One foot in front of another. And another. Another. Another. Another. Demented repetition was all they had left. There was no way of telling the time, very little to tell direction, and it had been too loud for them to even talk to one other, to comfort and warm the cold with stories old and new.

It was startling how many they had, despite having not lived for years. Survival offered grittier tales, though rare and sweet highs were known to appear, as rare and flashing as thunder; one of the few lights they had left. The sagas of existence in Lestallum, of routine and endless bodies had less blood, fewer blades, and just as much dirt.

The deep, thunderous grey of the marbled ice under her boots, flat and smooth as though it had never moved, stared up at her as she uncovered more and more.

Then it roared. A sound like earth being ripped apart. It was a deep threat given with all the gravel at the bottom of the river. The shunted noise that came next, almost electric in its clean, blunt nature, like a skipped stone, came with one horrifying visual.

She looked down and a broad, stark crack tore through the ice under her feet.

She drew frozen breaths through gritted teeth and lips so stung by the cold their only colour was blood from the bites of chattering teeth. Rena glanced over her shoulder and squinted in the rare, temporary refuge offered from facing downwind. She could make out one; Prompto. Then Talcott. Ochre trudged behind him, head down and bone tired. Gladio was further than she’d have liked.

Then she realised he was at the back of the line.

Iris shook the snow from her hood and, blinded, tried to find the carved trail again as she fought for every moment on the frozen river. Slender legs, no matter how many layers they’d given her to wear, stayed upright more through will than strength. She had her arms held half-out to balance and stared at the ice.

Rena’s stomach may have been empty, but it sank fast.

Prompto drew level with her and squinted through the gales.

“What?! What’s going on?!” he yelled.

“Go another thirty paces then stop, alright?!”

“Forty?!”

“Thirty! Three-zero!” she reiterated. Prompto nodded and stepped on, lips twitching as he counted.

They passed her by, heads down as they followed the tracks Prompto made. She fixed on Iris. Perfectly still where she stood and more alone by the second. Somewhere, ripped by the gales, her calls were drowning. If she wasn’t careful, she’d join them.

Rena began to fight through the snow towards her. Instead of steps, she slid her feet along the ice and kept her knees bent to feel the slightest shift. Exhausted muscles tricked her into a standstill, then let her proceed again.

All efforts on slowing her breathing until the edges of her vision would fight the blackness away, Iris could only hear her frantic heartbeat above the wind as it every pulse came as a fevered punch to the ears. Wide-eyed, she looked up from the threat beneath her feet. Revealed by the gales, a flag of dark, wild hair may as well have been the gates of heaven. Rena ploughed through the snow at a jog.

Iris fought to slow her breathing and stepped forwards. Another roar and growl came from the ice as it shifted beneath her and began to darken from grey to black. She screamed. The storm stole the short sound and laughed in its tempests.

Rena had stopped dead. She shouted something.

Iris felt tears wet and freeze her cheeks as everything told her to run, that she’d be caught and be alright, or she’d fall under and suffocate in a dark, glass case.

“What?!” she choked out.

“Crawl!”

“I-I can’t! I can’t! Oh shit, oh shit, shit, shit! Rena!” she sobbed. The ice laughed again in a smooth whip of a sound.

“Just crawl!”

Iris fought everything. She fought to breathe. To see. To kneel. To move. She fought to be careful. Recklessness was a temptation that offered rescue with a smirk. It was insincere but so convincing. Fingers clawed into the snow as if it could save her as the cold of the ice bit through her clothes and chewed into whatever flesh it could reach. It was nothing but a threat of what it could do, and how plunging and dark it would be.

Rena made her steps with tentative caution. She crouched lower. If she was closer to the ice, she could spread out if it cracked, or jump if it burst. They drew closer. Dark figures made grey by the spattered, endless winds, drew together like iron filings to a magnet. Small. Light. So easily swept away but darker, greater currents than themselves.

Iris stared up at her as she held out a hand, shoulders twisted at the ice beneath her laughed again. It was such a fun sound. It almost made Iris delirious. The river itself was mocking them, and in the Glacian’s fair voice. A musical laugh from lips far colder than they seemed.

“Iris…” Rena said, tone deep with warning.

“I’m… It’s…” she panted.

As though something under the ice had set its whip to crack, a line appeared under her hand. Rough, sharp and bright, the new scar darkened with frigid water and began to creak.

“R-Rena!”

She edged closer and held out her hand. “C’mon! You’re nearly there, just keep going!”

The snow at her feet, just beyond where she’d ploughed through, began to dampen and soak.

She saw Rena’s eyes flick back up to her own, then fix on something beyond.

“Iris, you need to move!”

“I am! I’m trying, it keeps-!”

“NOW!”

Rena was fixed on them. Revealed by the bright, flaming flags of their abdomens, she could see three. Four. Five. The pale legs of the arachne blended with the snow, but their clicking, screaming calls gave them away as they charged closer.

Iris turned and saw.

She crawled. The ice cracked and dipped behind her. Gravity made its subtle hauls and whispered her closer to the water.

They were racing, glowing eyes set on the prize as it struggled in the snow.

Rena’s outstretched hand was all that mattered to her.

“Iris!”

She couldn’t breathe, let alone cry or scream. On dry land, solid and stable, it would have been enough for Gladio and Rena to have shake their heads and move on, unless there was no other choice. On a frozen and shattering river, in a blizzard, with only two of them, it was suicide.

She reached for Rena’s hand.

The ice gave way.

Screams gargled by the water as it rushed and raged over them in a muddied mess, three slipped in, whilst two had the wisdom to jump back and bare fangs with a hiss. Iris clung to the crop of ice that had risen up in the force of it. She could feel it slip. Wide eyes locked on Rena as they reached again.

They reached and bound.

Knees braced against the ice that shuddered underneath with the reincarnated current, Rena held onto Iris’ wrist and began to pull. She worked backwards slowly. Too fast and she risked digging her own, watery grave.

Iris tried to stand. She slipped, screamed, and fell hard against the ice, one arm crushed beneath her. Rena still held the other.

“Come on! We need to go!”

A clawed, crimson arm rose from the water and grabbed her ankle.

“IRIS!”

She kicked and thrashed, but the arachne’s legs began to brace against the water, enough to pull her lighter, upper body from the water. Drenched and half-frozen, yellow fire burned from features as sharp as sheared glass. Rena fought for possession and felt herself be dragged towards the dark creature.

Something ran fast, growled low, and barrelled into the daemon. A spray of water froze almost as soon as it was thrown.

The force she’d been using to hold the stalemate was enough to pull Iris onto the same patch of fractionally unbroken ice. Iris cried, gasped for breath as though she’d been drowned, and stared at Rena.

She was watching something else.

From the swirling wound in the ice that swam with the muddied lifeblood of Cleigne, he rose. Drenched and coat heavy with the frigid water, Ochre’s nails scratched against the ice as he dragged himself out and shook off. He clawed further from the hole and crested the peak of ice Iris had clung to.

A red hand followed.

“Move…” Rena pulled Iris to stand and began to drag her away, legs forgoing exhaustion for the burning oil of adrenaline.

She didn’t need to tell Iris twice.

Rena held onto her wrist as Ochre raced ahead, tail tucked and baying. He led them back to the rest, who stood as still and lost as cattle in the whiteout.

“What the he-?!”

“GO! Right fuckin’ NOW!”

Chased by two arachne and one freezing as she dripped, with ice coating her like armour, the sight of Iris, Rena and the dog, was enough warning for all of them.

Blind and deaf to nothing but themselves, they raced across the ice as it roared and threw its head back with a laughter that shook it under their feet. The opposite bank rose ahead. It was at least eight feet, though how much was snow remained an unknown. Gladio powered ahead and hauled the first to meet his hands; Talcott. He threw him up onto the bank and made sure he kept running. Prompto was next. He stayed to help pull Cor as Gladio pushed. Half-frozen and more scared than any of them, Iris was climbed the bank herself, in one leap and scramble of limbs. Once he saw Rena, he grabbed Ochre and set him on the bank, before he turned back. Teeth gritted, she fought towards a worn track in the snow.

Gladio jumped, elbows braced against the bank as he found solid ground and clambered up. He turned and held out his hand. In one swift movement, hands clasped, Rena kicked against the last of the frozen river and Gladio hauled her up onto the bank.

There was no time. They were still coming. The hand he’d used to steady her, pushed against her back and began the race again.

They ran to find the others, and followed the tracks that had been made in haste. There were dark things ahead. Tall. Sharp when bared of their flesh. They were the broken, clawed bones of pines. They made for the trees. Hands pushed against frozen, harsh trunks to force themselves further into the woods and get themselves away from the claws that waited outside it.

Then it was quiet.

Ears ringing and throats ripped by harsh breaths in a frozen hell, they fought to catch their breath and searched the new dark.

Iris and Talcott burst from the trees. The siblings hugged tight enough that he lifted her from the ground. Iris cried into his shoulder, too petrified to hold it back for the sake of vain strength. Rena’s hands clasped either side of Talcott’s face as she looked him over. Gulping for air, he threw himself into a hug and tried to stop shaking.

The gales, screams and clicks of the arachne as they glared into the trees that were too close to fit between echoed through the new quiet.

“Fuck…” Rena cursed slowly, still fighting to slow and fill her lungs. “You alright?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m okay!”

“Alright…” She gulped and cursed under her breath as her eyes locked with Gladio’s. “Alright?”

Breathless, he nodded and let Iris cry.

Both of them jolted when Cor and Prompto jogged from the darkness, before they all stood in a pack shaken by tremors and cold.

“Ohh fuck… Hey,” Rena softened her tone as Ochre brushed against her legs. She wicked some more water from his coat, scratched at his ears and kissed his head as he licked at her face and chattered. “Hey… You did good… You did so fuckin’ good…”

They caught their breath in the quiet that ring between the trees. As the clicks and screeches receded from their lost quarry, they were left with nothing but trees. Snow. The cold. The sound of the wind whipping against the outer sentinels that guarded the edge of the woods. The pines were bald and black, as though darkness itself had scarred them and bittered their resin. The snow fell thick. There were no spindly needles to catch it with indignant defiance. There hadn’t been for years.

The rich, green cloak, thick and wondrous in coniferous eternity, that remained as all other changed, had been whisked away, and the bare bones of mountains and trees were shown and ashamed.

Something shook and caught Rena’s eye. Soaked to the hips, Iris trembled and fought to keep herself still, to hold her strength and pride after she’d allowed it to break, and worse, in front of others.

It hurt.

When Rena moved and took a step, it felt as though she’d stabbed her knife into her leg and tried to carve muscle from bone. She gritted her teeth and did it anyway. The bloodiness that came from that pain was almost enough to warm her. Not quite.

As she walked, the others began to follow. Ochre kept close on her heels and sneezed before he shook out his coat again. A fine dust of ice left him and clouded white, like a meaningless potion, and sank into the snow. He kept nudging at her legs. He’d chill and freeze if they didn’t get him warm and dry.

The same went for Iris, and after another few hours, Talcott. Cor. Prompto. Gladio. Then herself.

The mountains were strangers. Unable to rely on the colours and scents, the birds that always roosted in certain areas or the beasts that haunted specific landmarks, and without a view to the mountains surrounding her, she had no idea where they were. Practiced instinct forced her to climb the mountainside gradually and work them further into the ridge where the winds wouldn’t be so wild, and they could find something. Anything. A hole where a fallen tree had stolen the dirt that had borne it. A thicket. A crevice.

Anything.

What made the quiet all that more deafening, as snow dulled its edges and fell in thick, broad flakes, was their silence. They feared noise. It could attract too much unwanted attention, and with the cruel malice of the storm, they didn’t trust it not to hear them, to turn and tear through the trees to get them.

Those trees already made their own sounds. It was like gunshots as resin froze and forced the wood that made it to crack and snap. To splinter itself for its creation. Pine trees may have bled fire but the cold could break them.

The snow came up above her knees and grew steadily. Its top was frozen into a crust that chewed and bit at her jeans until the denim gave way, then the skin. Raw and seeping what little blood frozen flesh could give, Rena was careful with her feet. The mountain grew on her left and tumbled away to darkness and sharp branches on her right. One slip and it would be a long way down with no defined end.

A bright flash made them all freeze. It was soft but unmissable. The gales, distant though still loud, were outmatched by a deep, thunderous growl. In protest, the curve of the mountains made the wind cry and hiss at higher power. It was the sound of sheets being ripped from a bed as one claimed innocence and the other roared liar. Another strike of lightning, blurred by the blizzard, gave her wider horizons for a split second.

On her left, and leaning up the slope, was a fallen tree.

Something told her to go closer. Rena changed the path and made it steepen as she ploughed towards the trees on exhausted, dragged feet.

She knew it.

Rena’s huffed breath could’ve been a laugh. It clouded in front of her. She could smell the earth, the rain, the world, even as it began to bitter with gunpowder. She could hear the birds sing again. The sounds of summer, of breezes, the claps of pigeons in flight and the heavy feet that dragged through the snow towards her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice scarred by the harsh, dry air. Gladio’s hair, brows, lashes and beard were dotted with snowflakes as his eyes were kept dark by the night.

Rena blinked again and turned her head before her gaze.

“I know where we are.”

His expression widened for a moment. Rena looked back to the fallen tree and up the hill it leant against, as though it were pointing the way for them.

“You sure?”

She nodded and fixed on him again. There was something in her eyes. Memory. With her past, she could have known every ridge in the exterior for every reason under the sun. But this one made her hope. It made her dread the idea that she was wrong, or that what awaited them would either be destroyed or taken.

But until she knew all that, she knew where they were.

“Yeah.” The fragile peace in her expression meant more to him than if she’d beamed and laughed. “Come on.”

Rena led up the hill and fought to balance hope with dread with every step. The ground levelled and trees thinned. Another flash revealed the fallen as they’d pitched over it. Firmly leant against each other, four of the pines that the years had felled from thin, high soil were meshed against each other like tented fingers. If they were going to move, the gales would’ve shoved them by now.

It was almost as though the trees had kept it for them. That was always the way. The fallen always seemed the guard those that remained.

She knew she was far from done, but the wash of relief was warm and soft, as though she’d slipped into a hot bath and let it melt her. Her eyes closed as she emptied her lungs in one deep plume of breath.

The cabin was still there. Small, its roof as bowed as it had ever been, and decrepit as it clung the mountain and refused to move with all the staunch will of a hermit. Even the stump she used to sit on and dress the catches for dinner was exactly where she’d left it, buried under two feet of snow.

Gladio had dropped to the back of the line as they’d climbed and held a hand against Talcott’s back when he’d slipped a few times, but he drew level with her now. His chest fell with a breathed incredulity.

“No way…”

“Fuckin’ way…”

It was the cabin from all those years before. The one that had hidden Cor from the world while he began to rebuild his own. The same that had given them back to each other when he’d undertaken the trial. The sheets and skin that had known his tears and let them fall. She’d breathed that air and sworn herself to him, and he came back to honour it, scarred and wiser.

Both were older now, with more scars and wisdoms they never thought they’d have to learn. They’d crossed lined they’d taken oaths to keep, and they’d somehow survived it all.

Tentative footsteps crunched through the snow. In the quiet, silent snowfall of the clearing, they let the group break formation and crept towards the cabin. A quick glance to Cor made him nod in return. He, Prompto, Talcott and Iris waited outside as Rena and Gladio brought snow-caked bodies and sharp observance into the building.

The cabinet had all but fallen off the wall again, leaning dangerously from its fixings. The small stools were still there. A solid, rough table that had been the place of meals and work in the rare times it had been occupied. Even the old black pot had hidden from the world with the other parts.

They checked each room and met again in the main that housed a fireplace, the makeshift parts of a nearly century-old kitchen, and whispered as though anything louder could bring the roof down upon their heads.

“All good?” She put her fingers on the rusted iron hoop of the door and listened for his answer to push through the darkness.

“Better than good. Enough.”

She opened the door and ushered the rest inside. Each set to their own tasks and all of them would tend to the shared needs. At the end of ten minutes, the hearth held a humble, crackling fire under a pot full of snow to be melted and its warm glow showed the quiet, cosy business taken up by all of them.

Talcott positioned the tip of his knife and hammered it down through thin metal as he worked the second of three tins of salmon. At his size, a small canvas sack of rice lay heavy and plump in waiting.

Lestallum had offered employment and those desperate or naïve enough to pay before the job was done had taken their chances on them. They’d do the work, of course. There was no substitute for a good reputation. In the meantime, they had their own work to do.

Iris was repeatedly herded back to the fireside whenever she got up to help. It wasn’t the boredom or the idleness. It was back to square one, back to the place she’d fought to leave; one where she was porcelain and glass and all things fragile and frail. That was what she heard when others said delicate. Dainty.

She was so sick of being sweet. Iris could never work it out. The lion in her heart was kind, too. Her gentler ways took courage in a world of snatching hands that took what they could get and gave nothing back. She hated that no one, not even herself, would let her be both in peace.

Once the snow had melted and battered tin mugs filled with water to cool, Rena fetched another load of snow and began to pry the legs from a stool. She dampened a cloth in the hot, steaming water and sprinkled salt over the wood of the seat. A quick scrub and a rinse later, she handed it over to Iris.

“Might as well keep you busy in one place.” She shrugged lightly and passed her a small, rolled cylinder wrapped in thin linen. “About an inch. Let it stew before you put the rice in, alright?”

“Okay.”

Glad for the task, Iris began to carve at the stick of dried, compacted herbs.

Especially glad for the seemingly simple task’s ability to keep her fixed by the fire, Rena crouched by her rucksack. She reached for it and stopped. Tremors shook along her wrists as bound hands began to thaw. Rena flicked them hard and pulled the axe from its ties at the side of her bag.

She held it close by the head and set notches in the stool legs to carve slivers, tongues of wood to feed the fire that would peel and bloom from the old furniture like a flower. She set to make her first real cut when a hand wrapped around her wrist.

Gladio lowered from his crouch and sat on his heels. The softly stern eyes argued that there was no reason for her to neglect it any longer; they were safe for now and it was beyond bad form to neglect any opportunity, for anything, that came their way.

She let him take the axe and lay it on the thick, damp dust on the flagstone. Gladio brought her left hand into both of his, turned it so that her palm was up, and began to untie the old, dark linen. The outer layers were still the sandy tone of the clean fabric, but each circle his hand made around hers as he unwrapped it revealed the brown, the black and final scarlet. Fibres clung to skinless knuckles and stayed stuck as he worked the linen away with a delicacy that defied his image. Once he’d bared the other hand, Gladio held them in his and regarded them with a wincing frown.

The dusty grey of her skin was marred with violet scars and endless nicks that came from nothing more than their own existence. The cuts were spattered over her fingers and between them, before they combined into large gashes over her knuckles and smaller wounds over the back of her hands again. As the light and heat of the small fire heating the draughty space reached them, her skin took its usual pale tone and the grey and lilac of the damage became pink, then red. Blood flowed as if they’d been thawed. Within moments, it was seeping between her fingers and dripping into his palms.

“Talcott?”

He glanced up from his quietly cheerful task, only for his face to drop at the mess she’d kept hidden.

“Y… Yeah?”

“Can you get me some snow? Please? Just…” Gladio finished the last of the hot water from his mug. “Fill this, okay?”

“Yeah, sure! Okay, I’ll uh…” he trailed off and took to his new task.

Iris frowned at his quick exit, then glanced over at the couple. The shaking of her hands only made the blood spread further. Gladio heated a breath in his throat and made for his own backpack.

She waited, still and bleeding onto the floor, and silently cursed the manifestation of fragility that never quite went away.

Snow-caked boots kicked the worst of it off as Talcott slipped back into the light. By no means hot, the small room was at least warm enough to keep their breath invisible. He handed the mug back to Gladio and toed to his wall to pry open a tin of spinach. He glanced up a few times, but a small nick to his hand when he missed soon told him to keep his eyes on the task at hand.

Gladio drew a deep breath and plucked some of the snow from the mug. Jaw clenched, he pushed the frigid anomaly onto her knuckles. He squeezed it into ice in his palm, then used it to numb her knuckles and send the skin back to its despondent greyish-purple.

Rena fought winces when he began to pluck strands of linen from her hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d changed the dressings. Even letting him fix it felt strange. This was something she’d always done. They were her hands, put through her work, and she was to keep them in good condition, like any other tool for a task. She never felt the splits and cuts until they warmed, then bled, just as she never knew an axe head was loose until she swung, or a blade was blunt until it was stopped.

Once he’d pulled all the grafted fabric from her knuckles, repeatedly numbing them back and breaking the fine layers that were barely skin, Gladio dragged her rucksack across the floor and leant it against his legs. He kept both of her hands in one of his as he searched with the other. Absent and subconscious, his fingers stroked at her palms. It was just another way, and they did it constantly, to reaffirm the bond and keep it beyond functional; to keep it strong. That meant protecting the other from the world just as much as themselves.

When he finally pulled a small steel tin from the rucksack, he pinned it between his folded legs and worked the top off. The balm was one she’d made for the weather, though not for herself. Sore skin would be smoothed, and light aches numbed by its contents, namely a small dusting of morphine.

Another delve into her bag gave him a largely empty bottle with half an inch of pale powder at the bottom and the letter A etched into the side. Gladio opened it, held it over the small tin and tapped at the dark glass to shift the snowy powder within.

“Stop.”

He stayed perfectly still and glanced up. Rena was, to his eyes, far from unreadable. Calm, kind, and tired. Mostly tired. She drew a deep breath and gave little of it to her words as she spoke on.

“That’ll be enough.” Rena nodded and shook some more of the blood from her fingertips.

He waited for her eyes and dreaded what they’d give when she looked up. Despondency. A sliver of mania that told her she’d be better off without her hands, that throwing them into a fire would scar them and make them tougher.

When large pupils held by dark green rings, the same green that would’ve cloaked these mountains, they were quiet and soft and even held the meekest presence of shame, it tugged something from him.

The brown eyes she met held equal parts respect, understanding and apology.

Gladio forced large, rough hands, always trained for their power, to be gentle and ginger as he mixed hot water with the paste in the tin and factored in the antibiotic. A thin, greyish green looked more as though it would poison her when he began to swipe it over the cuts with a careful thumb.

Hardly the willing patient and cursing every moment that sensation returned to her hands, Rena distracted herself.

He needed a shave. There was no definition to his beard anymore; it was a thick dusting of dark, wiry hairs that were far softer than they looked. It almost made her laugh. Unlike others, Gladio’s true construction did lie in his face, though one had to look a little closer. Strong features, but gentle eyes. Rough stubble and soft lips. Scars he’d earned for the sake of others, directly or not.

The years had given him a tiredness under his eyes, the same paths for unshed tears as his father. Something told her he still resembled his mother, and Rena was sorry for never meeting her.

A haircut wouldn’t have done him any harm either. It wasn’t so much the length of it as the mess, and she knew mess.

“Gladio.”

He turned his head first before amber eyes followed to the sound of summon. Cor held out a small, battered pot that held his share of dinner. The scent of it both caught them. It rose above the woodsmoke of the room and teased with bitter spinach, salmon that had spent too long trapped in metal and parsley that barely remembered growing.

At least it wasn’t mushrooms. They could all agree on that.

“We’re on first watch. Prompto and-.”

“You should get some sleep,” Rena cut in. Gladio glanced back at her, then the hands in his, and continued with the last few knuckles to cake in clay-like salve. “It’s been tough going and…”

Cor narrowed his eyes. “And?”

“Well, you know…” Rena took a deep breath before she spoke on the sigh. “It’s an age thing.”

Gladio snorted a laugh and weakly fought a smile as he looked at her. The fun in her eyes told him of the intention; she’d gotten what she wanted. A laugh. Rena had always thought that laughter was the most beautiful sound in the world. Whether it was a babe’s first giggle, a child being tickled until they couldn’t breathe, the hidden snickers of teenagers at jokes they shouldn’t have understood, all the way to an old crone’s fond, creaking laugh. There was no better sound. Even Cor’s warm beat in his throat pushed a smile onto her face, partly for its nature and more so for its rarity.

“I don’t like that I can’t argue with that, Lauritas.”

“Now you know how I felt when you were my boss.”

She smirked and gave him her full attention as he relayed the new plan. There was a softness in the old soldier’s eyes that could only be granted by years. That time was treasure he’d seen ripped from comrades, enemies, bystanders. He knew the nature of it and knew just how precious living so damned long could be.

“Well, in that case, Prompto’ll go with you on the first shift,” he said to Gladio.

Cor glanced over his shoulder as the blond waited and spoke quietly with Iris at the fireside, collecting clean water for their bottles.

“Sounds like a plan.” Gladio nodded and quickly wrapped Rena’s hands with clean linen. Only one layer and loose enough to let the air harden the paste. Fingers stained, he pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and squinted through the dim at his watch. “Let’s say… five hours?”

“Fucking hell, you’re feeling generous,” Rena said with an almost mocking frown. “Sure you’re gonna stay awake that long?”

“Sure as hell.” He leant forwards and pressed a kiss to her temple as he stood. At his full height, he shrugged gently and buried his hands in his pockets. “Besides… Got a lot of catching up to do.”

* * *

Stomach full, she’d cursed Gladio when he woke her. He’d only laughed, muttered something about it being fair, and took the spot she’d warmed in the bed before Rena had even left the room. His contented sigh had shaken into a laugh when she’d uttered a dark rendition of ‘bastard’.

She’d gotten her own laugh when Talcott had rolled over in his sleep and smacked Gladio in the face, only for Iris to grumble at her brother’s protest. Three to a bed was a tight squeeze, but at least it was warm.

At least it had been a quiet night. Little more than the sounds of the wind wicking across the mountains and trees both near and far as their resin snapped like hard sugar.

She’d taken Cor’s spot after the old marshal had fallen asleep for the second time. Decades of military training was no match for exhaustion and the cold. He’d retreated inside and fallen asleep against a wall with a mug of hot water in his hand and the motheaten blanket around his shoulders.

It had been quiet for hours. Nothing but the sounds of the world. It was that, the fact they were in woods thick enough to keep back larger daemons, and her own faith in being quick that drove her to do it. The warmth of a full meal had bled all the way to her skin, then no further. Weeks of sweat, of grime and dirt, months of anything the rain couldn’t rinse off, were stained over her skin. She’d never been a pedant for appearances, but sensation was another matter and she couldn’t simply slip out of her skin.

Rena was in the final stages of her wash. She’d been careful to only bare one part at a time, wash it quickly, then cover back up to keep the cold off. Dozens of handfuls of coarse snow had been scrubbed into her skin like false salt and cold water until she felt clean. Human. She shook her head at her self-labelled ‘vanity’, but it didn’t stop her. She swiped the last of it from her arm and let out a deep, silent breath.

It felt good to stand in the cold and not be frozen all the way through. It had a sense of defiance. Quiet stubbornness and the insistence that she wasn’t quite dead yet, and the rats and mushrooms would have to wait to take her.

It felt like being alive.

Rena plucked the Henley from the snow she’d buried and trampled it in to clean it, then gathered the flannel from a branch. It was soft, warm and every fibre held his scent. She buttoned a few, noted a loose, then trudged back through crunching snow towards the cabin hidden by the trees.

When she stepped inside and closed the small door behind her, it still scratched against the flagstone. She wondered how many years of life it would take to dent the floor, though not for long. The moments between watches were ones to be careful.

Rena turned and faced the little room that branched off to the tiny hallway, its doors and beds and snoring occupants. Snores were never irritating; they were a sign of comfort. To sleep soundly enough, and without fear of being found if they were too loud, was more than a privilege. It was a gift.

The fire had died hours before, and breath clouded in the dim cold. Broad shoulders pulled as he coughed into his elbow, then poked at the fire again. Even on his knees, the house was small around him. Ever observant and aware, he glanced to his side and gazed softly at her.

“Alright, you can put those eyes away,” she warned, little more than a whisper.

Gladio snorted a laugh and drew a deep breath of the cabin air. Small, close and dusty, the scent of woodsmoke and lingering fish their first hot, full meal in weeks seemed to have housed itself in the rafters, with the woodworm and cracks.

She padded over. With every step, Rena defied the heavy boots on her feet and walked silently. She’d only make a sound if she wanted to. Slate grey turned black in his peripheral as she flapped out the henley and slung it over a string tied between two hooks, well above the fire but close enough to dry it out.

Rena crouched down beside him and teased the fire with the remnants of a stool leg. It was enough to cast a stronger orange glow as she herded embers together and blew life into them.

In his opinion, that light had nothing on the bright copper and bronze in the dark mess of damp hair she’d gathered over one side of her neck. It was so bare. Not a mark on her, no roses blooming in the darkest years. Another breath revealed the shadows cast by her jaw, clavicle, chest as the shirt shrouded her. One more breath, just one more, put fire in her eyes and made him both weak and strong.

She caught him looking. She always did but this time she didn’t have anything clever or quick to say. Any sound that could have left her would’ve been completely incoherent.

Earthen, soft brown eyes held all the warmth of campfires they’d fallen in love over. It was quiet. Secret. It had been nothing but theirs for so long. They had been theirs for so long. Scruffy and grizzled as he was, he was still Gladio and that would never change.

Dark lashes began to slow, settle and sink as he drew closer. He hesitated to lift his hand, paused halfway up. Rena made the decision. Her own hands were still bound, but her fingers could card through his hair and pull him just that little bit closer.

Gladio fell into a kiss with a whimper, something begging and soft. Calloused hands, long denied their papercuts and inkstains, moved to cup her cheek and slipped under the flannel to feel the warmth hiding under cold skin. Once he found the dip of her waist, followed the curve of her hip, he was halfway down old paths that he still loved to run.

Her hands tightened in his hair. She pulled. Up. Still bound and both standing, Gladio steered them away from the fire and the weak warmth. Already breathless, chest beginning to heave, he found the table through memory, and pinned her against it.

The soft sighs that drowned in the tame infinity of a kiss had to be kept quiet. Hands ran over each other in a fever, as though they’d melt away soon and needed to be felt, touched, now.

It was a thoughtless flurry. One demanded by time itself. If they left it too long, thought too much, they’d rush themselves away from it. They both knew that. Taking careless chances was not in either of their natures, but they’d have this.

Gladio gave a surging kiss that made her loosen her grip. On him. On sense. On everything. She could feel him unfasten the belt and did nothing to stop it. Hands and mouths could only give them so much satisfaction, and the tease of thighs and the sweat it put in beads on his forehead was too much of a tease. So close, and yet so far. The prize, ultimate and unattainable, was to be as close and linked to the other as possible, to fuse into one. It was to forget everything else.

He gave rasped breaths that flooded warm against her skin. Gladio’s teeth sank into her neck again and again as he worked lower. Her brows had gathered once he reached her collarbone and nipped at the thin flesh over the bone.

The sudden cold made her gasp. He’d dropped to his knees and whipped her jeans down. Rough hands worked fast to bare her, and the force of him spreading her legs put Rena on the table. She still needed touched. It was so rare that it was never enough. Rena slipped a hand under the shirt and teased herself with pulls and twists to her breasts. The scratch of his beard and teeth as he trailed up her inner thighs was enough to drive her to make it hurt.

Need without fulfilment hurt.

He had to be fast. Too long and either one of them could think themselves out of it. They knew not to. They could see consequence hanging above them like a piano on a rope, but neither would move until it started to fall. The key was to act in the shadows of cost, in fever, so fast it wouldn’t be seen.

He shot to his feet and four hands fought with his belt and fly as lips crashed in equal mania. Gladio forced her down against the table. The tease of her fingertips and the warm, coaxing laugh that bubbled in her throat made his brows draw together in craving. Kisses came as rough as they could, but there was always something gentle in him. His restraint was as weak as he was for her.

That first forceful thrust made it difficult to keep quiet. Mouth open and brows knitted, Rena caught her breath and tried not to whine for more. His muffled grunt was hidden in the flannel before he nudged it aside in favour of skin to bite and marks to make.

“You good?” he rasped against her neck.

“Yeah, yeah just-Glad-!”

Rena forced herself silent and gripped his hair. The thick strands took the brunt of her efforts to keep quiet as he drove into her, over and over as though anything less would whisk them both from this different plane and force them back to the sober existence. Drunken ecstasy, no matter how costly, was still so good at the time.

The first coherence she managed was small but compelling.

“Gladio…”

“Uh?” he grunted his question and gave another thrust that blinded her.

“More… More, please more.”

He lifted his head and wore a smirk with all the wolfishness he’d long banished play from. There was fun in him, the type that made her ache and promised that he’d take care of it.

“You want more, huh?” he asked in a shaky breath.

Gladio’s fingertips trailed over her. The callouses made their journey from her ribs, waist, hips, all the way to her thighs before he let them rest, light and ticklish, at the juncture between thigh and hip where the bone was proud under muscle and softness.

Her questioning frown was capable, he knew that much, and he knew she wanted it.

“Mmh…” she hummed hoarsely, hips desperate to play him and bottom lip trapped between her teeth.

“You might wanna let that go.”

Without releasing her trapped lip, she raised a brow and spoke. “Why’s that?”

Gladio put all his gravel, all the heat and serration of being denied into his voice and teased her with it. He watched it make her tense, felt her clench around the head of his cock and draw yet another drip of precum to blend with her own slick.

“’Cause I’ve been getting blue balled for months and I’m gonna fuck the hell outta you.”

Before she could answer from her keen smirk, Gladio’s hips snapped forwards as he tugged her onto him by the hips. He couldn’t take it anymore. Every aching drip of blood wanted her bared beneath, beside, above him. He wanted skin and heat. He wanted to make her blush again and hear her lose it.

Rena’s glare melted into absence. Propped up on her elbows, she watched the muscles in his neck cord when he clenched his jaw to strangle a moan. Teeth gritted and open-mouthed, Gladio gave her every last inch, each more tempting than the last. So long apart had given her nothing but want that made her tense up and wish he was there, filling her up as he fucked her senseless. She’d tightened in his absence, and readjustment was brutally sweet.

He could see all of her and it only made him need her bare. The feverish need for skin bled into his fingers. He only let go of her hips to push the flannel up and show him more. He’d missed the details, the scars and freckles, marks made by time and life. The softness of it defied her. It made him throb, both to hold back and tease the rare time out just a little longer, and to get them both off before they were discovered.

It was taking her, and he was witness. Nails scratched at the table as ecstasy bled. In her determination to keep quiet, she did everything to silence herself. That only made the sounds of skin slapping against skin as it soaked and heated, of the harder impacts and the struggled breaths they both took to stay hushed, that much louder.

It was sudden and he reacted just as quickly. Rena’s head fell back as she arched, legs wrapped around his hips to hold him close as he pounded into her in the haze of rarely indulged rut. He could see it. The way her ribs panicked around stuttered breaths, how her mouth fell open and eyes screwed shut. All breathless and tense.

Gladio grabbed her forearms and pulled her up. The sound she was already so close to giving was made higher by the feel of him slipping out. Rena muffled the strangled moan into his shirt before she drew back.

The look on her face made his heart sink.

“Sorry…”

“S’fine but you owe me one,” she croaked a whisper and lost her fingers to his hair.

Gladio hummed into the kiss and pushed back in. It made his lips twitch, always around her name.

“Ohh honey, you feel like silk…” he breathed his praises before he caught another kiss.

“Mmf… I miss silk,” Rena smiled. “And lace…”

“Fffuck… Remember the black ones? Good gods, every time you put ‘em on I couldn’t help myself. Looked so damn-.”

“You did help yourself,” she whispered, lips against his jaw. She timed her words to his strokes and felt him shudder with it. “Again, and again, and again…”

He switched from straight thrusts to hooking up, hips angled to give her as much as he could. Arms looped around his neck, she leant her forehead against his cheek and fought back every sound. She wanted to moan, to keen and squeal; to rile him up until he lost it. She wanted the mountains to know his name and just what he could do to her.

“You remember that silk dress?”

Rena frowned and cocked her head. The endearment only made Gladio breathe into a grin.

“The grey one?”

“Yeah… You looked so good in that… I wanted to ask-nngh- you to dance.”

Rena shook her head with a smile. “You fuckin’ sap…”

“Hey, I wouldn’t have minded tearing it off you, if you’d wanted.”

“I wanted,” she nodded, shaken by every thrust. “I really wanted.”

Gladio paused with a frown. “Really?”

“Only you.”

The simplicity of it drew him into another kiss. They surfaced breathless as the chase was taken up again. Gladio whispered his own words against her cheek before foreheads rested against each other.

“Always you.”

Hot in the cold, breaths clouded between them and offered what little shroud they could. He heard every sound drowned to little more than a broken remnant or morphed into curses that she swallowed. Every time she tightened, he had to hold back a growl, a grunt or groan. The dig of her nails into the back of his neck made him want to give her name fire and heat, to give it all the strength he could.

But the pink flush on her cheeks was so delicate he wanted to say her tenderly, as soft as petals and prose.

She deserved both.

“You first,” he panted.

Rena gave him a questioning frown, almost worried, as her eyes glazed to hold it back.

“Still a gentleman.” Gladio smirked and winked as sweat gleamed on his forehead. She shook her head and was interrupted by his maddening rhythm.

“I-I’m on a table… for fuck’s sake…”

“Beats the floor.”

She stared at him for a moment before she laughed. He followed with his own breathless chuckle and soothed her back with a kiss.

“Seriously though… You first.”

“You sure?” she asked shakily.

Gladio’s voice was strained. “I’m close… If we go at the same time-.”

“It’s gonna get loud as fuck, yeah- oh fuck yes…”

Yes was a wonderful word. It opened doors to doors and could be sweet even through gritted teeth. She wanted to throw her head back and chant it until there was nothing but Gladio and yes, until she was voiceless and they were both spent.

For now, the hunt was on and release was a prize quarry. Her only focus was to stay quiet; the rest was instinct. Everything from the fingers she knotted in his hair, the fistful of shirt she grabbed, the tightened legs and her own hips frantically meeting with his.

“Just take it,” he coaxed, voice nothing but the hoarseness that usually cloaked it. Her string of swears made him grit his teeth and fight to hold back until it was his turn. “It’s yours, just take it…”

A broken growl of her name was all she needed. Rena tensed and curled into him, teeth gritted and shaken by the tremors. It tore her apart on him, and staying silent strangled her.

When she managed to breathe again, Rena’s ears were ringing in a fuzzy mind. She could see it though. His breaths were huffed against her neck as he throbbed and slid against slick resistance. Tiny croaked whines left him sweet and made her sorry.

Fingertips soothing the crescents she’d cut into his nape, Rena took to her whispers.

“Just come.”

He went harder, and deep. Rena pressed her cheek to his and felt the stubble against smooth skin.

“You know how good it feels, c’mon…”

“Rena. I- I’m- fuck…”

It was a warning of the best kind. She met him in a kiss and teased his lips with hers as he lost all rhythm. She gave it soft and felt each syllable move her tongue. His name was gold over silver.

“Gladio...”

With a forced breath that turned hoarse and growled deep in his chest, Gladio fell into burning euphoria. Each hard, final thrust came with another flood of come that made her breathless and a strangled groan.

“…Shit…” Gladio let his head fall on Rena’s shoulder as they both gulped for air.

“It’s alright.” She shook her head and pressed kisses to his cheek. She could feel him twitching through it as the final drops left him. It was already leaking around him and soaking them both. “It’s fine, it doesn’t matter.”

His shoulders were heavy and Gladio was the kind of quiet that made them both sorry.

“Hey…”

He raised a brow, but didn’t move. He was safe, face buried in the crook of her neck, lips warm against a hot bruise as her pulse began to calm against the bridge of his nose.

“C’mere.”

It was a soft coaxing he could never refuse. Gladio drew a deep breath of her scents and almost melted again. He’d forgotten how enticing sex could smell. Still, she waited. He pulled his face from the warmth of her and met dark eyes with soft intentions.

“You alright?”

He broke into a soft smile and leant to nuzzle against her nose. “Mhm. You good?”

“Mmh,” she hummed a nod until a kiss hid it in harmless oblivion. “We should probably get cleaned up.”

Little but silhouettes with steaming breath and a rediscovered looseness to them, they parted carefully and cleaned themselves off with swatches of linen, only to throw them on the fire. Dried, dressed and each back in their own clothes, Gladio made for the little hallway and the bedrooms attached.

When he poked his head into the first, a tense peace took hold of him. Talcott and Iris were fast asleep, having woken and been fed again. He lay flat on his back, one arm across his stomach as the other clung to the dog, whilst Iris still slept curled in a ball.

They hadn’t left them for more than a few hours in years, and never in the hands of others. Whilst Gladio trusted Cor and Prompto with his life, he wasn’t sure he trusted them with theirs. It had been so long since they’d had anyone else, let alone anyone to rely on, that other people immediately seemed untrustworthy.

Rena appeared at his side and took her own peek of the two. He watched her closely and slung his arm around her waist.

It was more than simply watching them grow; he’d been one to cultivate it. To ensure it. They both had. Things had changed from the early days, that much was certain. After they’d all split off on their tangents, it had hit him one night. Iris had argued for her right to bear arms and to fight, to be useful, as she’d put it. Gladio had refused. She was still too young, in his eyes, even now. And Talcott… He had lost count of the number of times their limited and precious sleep had been momentarily interrupted when the small boy had climbed into their bed and slept wedged between them, in the only place he felt safe sometimes.

“They’ll be alright,” she said, winding her fingers with his.

“Yeah… But the other two…” Gladio winced as he trailed off. Rena shook her head at his humour.

“I’ll be outside. Go kick them out of bed for me, will you?”

“You got it.”

Rena padded through and slipped from the cabin. He heard the door shut just before he raised his fist to knock on the other bedroom.

The door swung open and Cor sidled out, shaking his head as he muttered darkly. It took Gladio a moment to zone in on what he was saying.

“Honestly. Seven years and it doesn’t make any damned difference. There’s something in these rafters, I swear to the Six.”

Gladio’s open mouth closed as his features fell into a frown. He followed Cor through to the main room of the cabin as the old man shucked into his jacket. He reached to pluck his gloves from the table and made a double take before he faced the beams of the ceiling and sighed deeply.

“Tell me you did not have sex on the table.”

Gladio was silent and a little wider-eyed than usual.

At his silence and lack of response, Cor growled another sigh and forced himself out into the cold darkness of the woods. He continued, though under his breath.

“Oh, of course, they had sex on the table like heathens.”

“Beds were occupied,” Gladio shrugged as he closed stepped out to join him and closed the door.

Cor let out a single beat of laughter. “You know, I always knew you were a romantic. Had you down as spontaneous too, but never classless, Gladiolus.”

“He what now on the where now?” Prompto yawned and stretched as he joined them outside.

“He had sex on the table.”

“What table?”

“The table.”

Prompto turned to Gladio with a grin and a wink. “Oh¸ I get it. You two got busy on the table, didn’t ya?”

“We didn’t get busy, we made love.”

“Oh. you made love, right… So you got freaky, huh?” The blond raised an eyebrow only for Gladio’s to remain in a sincere frown. He spoke again, through gritted teeth this time.

“We. Made. Love.”

“We fucked, get over it, and you two can just keep your noses out of it before they get broken,” Rena said simply as she swayed from side to side on her feet.

Prompto let out a small laugh and shook his head before he flopped into the chair they’d moved outside. Cor shook his head and folded his arms loosely. Gladio rolled his eyes and turned to her.

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah… Let’s get this shit over with.”

“Alright.”

Rena turned and began to walk. If the storm stayed off, they could be there and back within eighteen hours, assuming she only stayed for one. Gladio didn’t think she would for much longer, and that he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut if he did. Still, there were merits to it. Mollie and Sepe were bringing a second payment down for them and would be around long enough to take part of their quarry back to Lestallum. The visit came first, then they’d clear the daemons from the power lines marked on a crude map.

She was a good thirty feet ahead, and only just in view as he began to follow. When Gladio reached the edge of the clearing, he was stopped again. Cor stepped in front of him and fixed him with a more earnest expression than the old, stern marshal had given him in the weeks since they’d run into each other.

“When you come back, I need to speak with you.” Cor glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Both of you.”

Gladio frowned. He knew that he’d get nothing out of Cor until he was ready to share, and that Rena was getting further away by the second. Before he could stop himself, he nodded.

“O…kay.”

“Good.” He nodded and placed a hand on Gladio’s shoulder. “And be careful out there.”

Thick brows drew into a frown, but his mouth held a line of sincerity. Trust. He had no other option, and in all honesty, would never trust them to anyone other than Cor and Prompto.

“Yeah… We will.”

* * *

“Ah! Fuckin’…” Rena’s voice fell to a growl.

“What?”

“Stubbed my toe.”

“In those boots?”

“Alright, so I kicked shit out of a rock- that I couldn’t see- and I wouldn’t recommend it. Happy?” She looked over her shoulder with an almost bright expression.

Gladio shook his head with a smile, but it died just after she turned away. It was far from her usual character to not pay attention, and he didn’t like what he thought could be running through her head.

She had no idea. There was something heavy in her gut, and she persuaded herself it was stubbornness digging its heels in. She’d stepped into a stream earlier and soaked herself to the knee. As the woods became thicker, they really did become harder to move through. That wasn’t entirely the physical effect.

A recently full stomach that had rediscovered the splendour of satisfaction, of hot food that weighed her down and made her drowsy, had begun to make its demands for more. Even though her appetite had renewed vigour, Rena didn’t think she would’ve welcomed anything. Hunger was good. The cramping gave her something to focus on. Just one more little distraction on a road she still knew in every fibre, every muscle and bone. Each and every ounce of her knew the way back home, and she’d refused it for so long.

She barely noticed when the passed through the thicket that rose high. It only stood out for being a rare, snowless scape. Little more than twenty feet long and six feet high, the bowered tunnel of branches and willow only had snow dusted inside either end. The wind had tracked it through on its boots and left it lying. Cold. Quiet.

The bracken was gone, and it made the trees look thinner. Lonely, even though the others were mere feet away. Each was alone in a crowd, too weak to speak with the others or dare to flourish. The tracks they made through the snow showed none of the pine needles that used to cake that ground. The shade and texture of them could decipher one year from the last. They fell soft and became hard for it, until the earth took them and helped them up to let them fall again.

She could remember the day she left. The wind had taken a turn and shaken the trees until they’d cried for her. She’d been enchanted. Needles fell in the chilled gold of a spring sunrise, like down from a fledglings nest.

Rena’s mind clung to that memory, as she had to dozens of others on the road to the cabin. Anything for a distraction. Had she been less scattered, she would’ve cursed herself for her nerves and steeled every fibre. Given herself backbone, though she was far from spineless.

His hand brushed against her hip as he drew level and reached for her.

“Hey… You okay?”

She stared at him for a moment, ears twitching to every phantom sound of the deadwoods. There was nothing but the pulse that hammered against her temples, the distant wind as it hollowed the pass and the trees that snapped without ever changing. Their destruction was to be revealed in the fall. She could hear all that, and so much more. She could hear the history of it, smell the way it changed with the seasons, despite everything that was frozen now.

She remembered all that, an entirely different life, before she remembered herself.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m… Fine…”

Gladio clenched his jaw and fixed on her with soft eyes. He knew better than to press. Than to offer to turn back. Again. Most of all, he knew better than try and stack his own stubbornness against hers, when he paled in comparison.

“Let’s go,” she sighed, after a deep breath. Gladio nodded and felt her slip away from his hand.

He’d have limited influence here, he knew that. He’d spent the comfortable silences as they’d passed through the mountains trying to decide his approach. At first, it was all too passive-aggressive, and would quickly earn Rena’s irritation; little could annoy her faster. But he couldn’t stand to lie, so sweet and kind would remained reserved for their own group. His final decision had been a speak-when-spoken-to, civil and polite attitude. Common decency.

But one word lilted to cut her and that would be the end of his limited respect and a silence he’d capped over an argument he could never let go of. For as long as he held her, that issue was in his hands. It was his own disagreement, not hers.

Rena stopped at the porch. Those steps still held something forbidden. She hadn’t climbed them since she was a child. True to form, she obeyed the old rules. Never come back empty-handed. The rucksack was full of supplies she’d brought to part with. Medicines. Canned foods. Rice. Even a tin of syrup, which could often draw blood in its price.

Rena wasn’t a child anymore, and she’d never needed her hand held.

She’d only just turned over her shoulder when Gladio brought his eyes from the house and locked with her.

“I’ll wait here if you want. Give you a couple minutes.”

It stung to say it. Those words, no matter how soft they met her ears, felt as though he’d run his tongue across an open tin, split the flesh and blended metal with blood. They were bitter. Hard.

He had to remind himself it was her decision when she nodded slowly. Innate respect was always there, but he had to fight not cross the line and deny her own choices. Steering her this way and that for no more than his own preference would’ve put him on the same level as them. Just one more person that saw her as a means to an end. No more a human than her knife.

“I’ll come get you,” she whispered.

It was quiet enough to hear, and Gladio’s deep breath was just as loud as her words. He nodded, sighed deep in his chest and pressed a kiss to her temple.

“Alright.”

Rena hummed a note, though it was too quiet to be sure, and turned towards the house again. It was harder to lift her foot than it was to put it on the stair and climb. Erro’s chain was still on the porch. She could remember when Mollie had told her that he’d died. With Seyna gone, Ochre was the only one left.

She slipped into the house and made no more noise than she ever would’ve dared to as a child.

Gladio stared at the door for a moment, just to see if the handle turned and she retreated. Nothing. His sigh plumed in front of him before it disappeared into the silence.

It only took a few seconds more for something restless to settle on him. He stood outside like a dog left to guard, all but whining for her to come back. If she’d ask it of him, he’d do it, but there was a pull to somewhere else.

He knew it would only make things worse. That it would only serve to remind him.

Gladio glanced at the door again, then trudged through the snow. It crunched and compacted beneath his feet as he went past the edge of the cabin and a hundred yards into the woods.

It was where she’d left it. The door was squint but unmarked. He only stopped once he’d reached out to the door of the shed.

This would be the second time he’d crossed that threshold without permission. His first had been deliberate. He’d wanted to irritate her. To coax a reaction from her, and let him understand her.

He’d never stopped to think that when she’d allowed him, or at least not forced him out of the shelter, that she was letting him in. She let him see. Let him be in that space. He’d mocked her for it.

Gladio pushed the small, wooden door and ducked down to step inside with far more respect than before.

There were no herbs hanging in their bunches from the rafters. The string had stayed, but they’d been cut from their dangling existence. It had been a scented mobile, one she’d made herself. Even through the callouses on his fingertips, he smiled weakly at the marks in the doorframe that tracked her growth. His hand slipped down and stopped at the lowest. It only came to his sternum.

He couldn’t look at it anymore and he hated that he had that kind of weakness. Turning away only led him to more. His finger traced the black metal hook from the strongest crossbeam of the rafters, one she’d perched hundreds, if not thousands, of catches on. Once his hand fell back to his side, it knocked against the table. He glanced down at it, the small stool, and caught sight of something he hadn’t seen in years.

Straw.

His eyes jumped between stray blades until their maker, that had loosened them so carelessly, met his eyes as it hid under a thin, worn out blanket. He was glad that when he breathed out again, it fogged his view. Softened it from existence for him.

He couldn’t take it anymore. Not without having to act on it. Having to be obvious or borderline aggressive in his words. He may have been trained for his strength, but he had a far sharper tongue than he liked. It was quick. Precise. Before the bitterness could slip into his eyes and gather at the back of his mouth, ready to be used as a weapon, Gladio stepped from the shed and only just stopped himself from slamming the door.

It was just as cold outside. He gripped the handle. Crushed it. Then let go. A curse paced in the back of his mind when he glanced at the cabin, but it was quickly silenced.

There was no smoke from the chimney.

Brows drawn, he followed his own tracks back to the house. He walked, at first.

Then he ran.

Gladio skipped the steps onto the porch, threw the door open, himself inside, and then let it close at his back.

It was so quiet.

The moment he stepped into the cabin, he could only remember his first memories of it. The noise. The sheer clamour of that many people living. The smell of heat from the fire that never went out, and always something on the stove. The movement and mess of lives as they were lived.

It was like a different house.

Gladio took notice of small things. Things that had little bearing and acted to distract him as he stepped through the cabin again. There were boots in the hall. Coats, too. Dry. When he padded into the main room, the fire was out. It made the urn atop the mantelpiece that much bleaker. There were no flames reflected on the smooth black ceramic that held his ashes.

The door to his right, that led to the study, was open. Just.

He felt cold.

Gladio forced heavy feet to move, and quietly so, as he drew closer and pushed the door.

Rena was the only one standing.

Everything else was blood. It was everywhere. Pooled on the floor, sprayed across the walls like thrown paint and spattered on the ceiling. It covered them. They were strewn about the room like ragdolls, ruined and torn apart. Dead eyes stared from dead faces.

It was everywhere. Stained through the lines of palms young and old. The wounds were cruel and rough. It was hard to tell who was who, but he could make out her mother’s hair stained black by blood, and Mollie’s newest child still showing in her shape.

Then the scent rose to him. Sour. Unearthly. The reek of rotting flesh was kept quiet by the cold and hidden under the heavy scent of blood.

Numbed by it, he took another step towards Rena and reached for her hand. He’d only just brushed against her fingertips when she turned, and he was terrified.

She wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t. Rena was paler than ever. Trembling.

Dark eyes had welled.

She tried to speak, but the sound failed into the hoarse squeeze of it all as it gripped her throat.

His own eyes heated, Gladio caught her as she started to cry. The struggles to breathe became sobs. Rena shook and clung to his shirt, face buried in his chest. He held her tight and tried everything. Apologies, assurances, none of it was enough. None of it would change anything. Even kisses to tear-salted cheeks and desperate fingers made soft as they stroked through her hair weren’t enough.

He knew that guilt tasted like tears. That regret stole her voice and fear made her shake.

She cried, and he knew what pain sounded like.

* * *

It was miles before he looked back and when he did, it was spectacularly haunting.

The deep black and blue of night, of a sky bruised so deeply their sun could never breach it, was stained by a huge plume of grey smoke. The blaze itself was enough to be seen from the next ridge and illuminated the pass. That fire was an echo of the ones that had borne these woods.

It carried them from this life to what lay beyond. It was tradition. The soul wasn’t free until the body was gone.

They were gone, and she just as alone as she had ever been. The difference was that there was no choice for her now.

They stopped and Rena took her own view of the past as it went up in smoke.

Gladio could see the fire reflecting in her eyes and was sure that she’d left something in it. Something to die. Her last tie with them was gone.

It was only her now.

The last of her kind.


End file.
